Microsoft has
made headlines with two of its most recent ad campaigns--the new TV spots featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, and the Mojave Experiment, which was aimed at sparking discussions about the
"likeability" of its Vista operating system (OS). Indianapolis-based Bradley and Montgomery (BaM) was the agency behind the Mojave ads, which took some flak from the tech community for allegedly
side-stepping some of the program's most nagging issues. Still, the independent shop prides itself on having thought outside the box for the campaign.
Online Media Daily talked with Ben
Carlson, BaM's chief strategy officer, about thriving in the Midwest, the agency's use of emerging media, and of course, whether the Microsoft publicity has helped garner a slew of new business.
OMD: Let's get the burning questions out of the way. Do you feel like the Mojave Experiment campaign was a success? What would you say to critics that argue that it wasn't a realistic depiction
of the average Vista user's experience?
Ben Carlson: The premise behind Mojave was not to try to say "Oh, it's perfect, this is the right OS for you." It was just to get people to
challenge some of the preconceived notions they had about the program, and I think that's what it did. That's why we said "See for yourself" and "Decide for yourself" at the end of each one. We've
evolved the Web site to let people see it for themselves, and also address some of the questions that the ads have raised. We're also doing "Decide for yourself" events--we had our first one in
Seattle last weekend--where they can try using Vista.
OMD: Has it helped you garner more new business?
Carlson: Absolutely. We didn't shy away from the challenge, and I think
it made some people take notice. The thing is--we're a project-based agency. We never need to be the agency of record, and we don't generally compete in pitches. That's not how we work. We come in and
say: "what can we do for you that's going to be amazing? How can we take that 3% you have available to invest in something crazy or over the top and make it work?" So we've started working on some
interesting contextual out-of-home (OOH) stuff, some viral video and even some unique Web sites.
OMD: How did Microsoft find you?
Carlson: We'd been working with them for
about a year and a half, particularly on stuff for their small business team. And we'd done some interesting things to promote Vista to small business audiences. For example, in early spring, we
created a street-level, life-sized billboard of a small business in Chelsea (Manhattan) to show off Vista's backup creation capability--like a carbon copy of the store. It brought to life something
that was a rather dry feature of Vista, and I can only guess that the creativity got noticed enough to let them want us to try something consumer-facing.
OMD: You've done some
interactive, some events-based work, and you also have a media-buying team. How do you excel at any one thing when you wear so many hats?
Carlson: We're not siloed. We have 25 people, and
some have different areas of expertise, but everyone is adept at moving between traditional and interactive, strategy and execution. The top people come together quickly on a project--we call it the
swarm--and plot out the creative, the media and the production, and then we'll usually end up with something that can be used for TV, for the Web and even out-of-home. If we do end up with something
very technical, like programming for a Web site, or the production of a commercial, or print photography, we have a roster of people to partner with to make it happen.
OMD: What's your
favorite emerging or new media channel to work with?
Carlson: There's so many, but I'm completely obsessed with social networking right now. The amount of info we put into the "cloud"
about ourselves is fascinating, and I think we can develop amazing innovations around that. And it's not just about serving the smartest banner ad on someone's profile because they've written words or
tagged themselves with a term that matches your algorithm. It's about figuring out how to serve them info and entertainment in new, unique ways.