Commentary
Fake Company Promotes Real Microsoft Office and Share Point Products
- by Amy Corr , Staff Writer @MediaPostOTL, September 13, 2010
How do you promote Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 to a target audience that's difficult to reach with traditional ad campaigns? Create a campaign that speaks their language: techy.
The Allure Bays Corp. (ABC) is a fictional company whose name originates from a broken-English Internet meme from 2000: "All your base are belong to us."
The campaign targets developers, technical decision-makers and IT professionals with a Web site that promotes the faux company's fake products with video "infomercials," pop culture references and Easter Eggs. The site is loaded with content, so sit back, relax and explore.
The site features
three main "departments" -- Collaboration, Communication, and Information -- that showcase Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 features. Videos introduce ABC employees quirkily
performing actions found in updated versions of Office and SharePoint.
Some of the videos are pretty amusing. I enjoyed the "Department of Communication." An ABC spokesman shills the "Communicator Cloth," a rag that cleans users' cluttered emails with a wipe of the computer screen. While he performs a demonstration, his schtick appears in Morse code format the bottom of the screen. Not only that, a series of unusual letter combinations are shown throughout the sales pitch as well. The first letter of each word the salesman speaks is collected and formed into its own nonsense word. "DYST? N? OTJFYR." This translates into: "Did you see that? No? Ok, then. Just for you rewind." The Communicator Cloth is like the Sham Wow for techies. Too bad this salesman is no Vince Shlomi. In reality, the Communicator Cloth is an email clean-up tool found in the latest version of Office.
Web site content, along with a fictitious security camera feed, was leaked prior to ABC's Web site launch. Paid media ads ran on YouTube, The Onion, Digg.com, and Geek.net.
A Twitter account was created to further confuse and intrigue the tech audience. Look there for hints on finding hidden Easter Eggs.
The Wunderman network in Seattle created the campaign with Blast Radius leading creative development.
Once video scripts were approved, it took 10 weeks to create the site and videos. "The campaign was inspired by the insight that the audience is weary of marketing messages and resistant to overt marketing claims," according to Mark Gross of Wunderman.
Gross went on to share one of his favorite responses to the Allure Bays campaign: "What happens when the marketing people at MS take acid and watch LOST? Allure Bays Corp."
Amy Corr is managing editor, online newsletters for MediaPost. She can be reached at amyc@mediapost.com.
Who knew Microsoft had a sense of humor? This is a brilliant execution of: (a) knowing your marketing situation (who's going to get excited about a new version of Office) and (b) speaking to a defined target in a way they might listen to and appreciate. There are a lot of sexy topics for techies to chat about, and I daresay that Microsoft Office isn't one of them That's what is so interesting about this campaign. It breaks through the clutter and creates a water cooler topic. Hats off to Wunderman. And to the MS guy who fought it through the system.