David Webster, Microsoft's gm of brand marketing, says the ad campaign that started in September with the baffling Jerry Seinfeld-Bill Gates ads has resulted in a 10% lift in preference for the brand
over Apple. He tells Todd Wasserman that the company is "thrilled" with the latest executions, which feature real consumers named Lauren and Giampalo trying to buy laptops for less than $1,000 and
$1,500.
"One of our premises is we know our brand has billions of users around the world, so if we can't find actual customers to do your storytelling around there's something wrong,"
Webster says.
Regarding the "icebreaker" Seinfeld ads, he says that the big fear last summer was that they might not get attention. "The thing that was on our minds was 'Well, what if we
launched an ad campaign and no one paid attention?'" In the end, the unpaid media coverage outpaced the exposure from the media buy by a factor or three to four, he says.
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