• October 12, 2010

Microsoft is throwing big dollars behind an ambitious ad campaign for Windows Phone 7, touting how the platform lets users get information at a glance and go about their lives.

A teaser TV spot released online Monday shows people staring at their phones in a series of unlikely situations -- on a rollercoaster, while at a urinal, with their feet dangling in the water as a shark approaches--and capped with a voice-over saying, "It's time for a phone to save us from our phones."

Early versions of some of the ads, created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, had already leaked onto YouTube. But the total of eight spots will formally debut starting in Europe Oct. 12 and in the U.S. Oct. 25. "We're going to have the biggest TV marketing campaign in the history of the mobile business, with the ads running on shows such as 'Hawaii Five-0,' 'Bones' and 'Saturday Night Live,' as well as late-night talk shows," said Todd Peters, who leads Microsoft's mobile communications marketing group, in a company-posted Q&A online.

But advertising can only help so much. Microsoft's heavily promoted Kin smartphone launched earlier this year and aimed at teens and 20-somethings proved a huge failure, pulled after only two months on the market.

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