CP+B Microsoft Strategy = Embracing the Awkward?

Ok - I'm sure I'm not the first one to come up with this theory....

But I am thinking Crispin Porter Bodusky's new Microsoft Strategy may actually be to be "un-cool"...and if it is, I think this is absolutely brilliant.

Ok so first off...

The Work (or clues):

1. Sienfeld+Gates advertising campaign: Paying (very publicly) huge amount of money on talent for a campaign that had a convoluted SMI and had the majority of the world scratching their heads (and critics salivating). Ads end up getting pulled after 2 TVCs, being replaced with a more predicatable "I am PC" spots.
   
2. T-Shirts...yes T-Shirts focusing on the utter "geekiness" of MS. I mean for what reason would Microsoft ever advertise DOS? Having worked a bit for them in a past life - the last thing you would ever promote is something that has anything to do with a command line to a non .NET/Vbasic/etc target.
3. Microsoft releases "Songsmith" video on their site and on YouTube (added Jan 8, 151k views/785 comments). Universally panned as "lame" "horrible" etc.... Yet amazingly, it still remains on the MS corporate site.

Conclusion/Theory
Ok, so here is my theory. CP+B knew trying to change MS's image to compete directly with Apple's was going to be a daunting task. Any campaign that attempted to shift MS's brand from the "evil empire" to cool, hip, etc would be viewed with skepticism and disdain by the general public. So what do you do?

You embrace the geek. You embrace not trying to be cooler than Apple, but being the awkwardly geeky brand and create a buzz around their core essence - they are technologists first, marketers second.

Ok, could be wrong. But remember this is coming from (arguably) the world's premier agency. Do we really think thy would make this many mis-steps for a single client? My guess is nope.

Some Related Links:
http://creativity-online.com/?action=news:article&newsId=133266&sectionName=special_report
http://community.research.microsoft.com/
http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=133069

(Big ups @scottsinclair for sparking this train of thought)

Web 09 - Auckland

I am sure the hipster Aucklander set are already “in the know”, but just stumbled across this.

“WEB09 will bring people from around the world to Auckland for this premier event, with a focus on current and new trends in web design, technology and community.”

Speakers include Biz Stone from Twitter

Auckland Sky City
April 17-18, 2009

Microsoft Tag

MS announced the release of MS Tag, a QR competitor specific for mobile platforms.

Summary

• An interesting solution in that TAG codes are easily developed and baseline reporting can be tracked via MS’s site.
• Also, tags (appear) to be universal across platform types (Symbian, iPhone, Blackberry, etc).
• Readers already appear to be in market (at least for the iPhone which is the only platform that really matters...).
• From what I can tell, admin, readers, stats, etc are all free (at least during beta)

Relevent Links:

Intro overview (Check out the FAQ info specific to publishers)
Admin Site that allows you to create and manage Tags (currently in Beta)
iPhone Tag Reader
Other Mobile Readers

An Example:

1. Download the iPhone application from the link above
2. use it to take a pic of the following Tag I created that (should) take you to www.aimproximity.co.nz
3. Since they include baseline reporting within the admin - I’ll keep an eye out on usage stats.

UPDATE
Per comments below, here is a screenshot of the reporting function. As mentioned pretty baseline data at this point

kick start

ok - so have been predominately on Twitter and have left this thing to die....

But have decided that the character limits of Tweets require me to resurrect this ghost town.

Will use it to expand on Tweets when need be, but am not really going to be checking/responding to any comments unless with any frequency - so please DR @dlin if need be

"This town is a ghost town...bands won't play no more" - The Specials

Google Ads Site Search

Pretty obvious move for them, but now corporate sites can use Google Search (Business Edition or GSBE) for their own internal search function. The Appliance version runs internally on company sites ($6k US per year), while the standard is off of Mountain Views servers ($100 US per year) for 5000 pages.

http://www.google.com/enterprise/public_search.html

It's not listed within the NZ Google site (although I did find it under about us at http://www.google.co.nz/services/index.html)

Widgets

A story on Widget's. Interesting just for it's background on how big player like Google and IBM are developing widgets as well as how others like the NBA, Rebook, and Ebay are using it as a channel. Haven't seen any NZ specific examples (although rumors abound about a NZ Telecom promo widget).

Also, a note about it's potential of fubarring existing ad models (similar to RSS feeds).

"If widgets really take off, they could upset some big apple carts. They undermine performance measures that the ad industry has tried so hard to establish for measuring Web activity, such as page views and time spent on a site. In a world where a Web site can be splintered into a hundred little pieces, widgets reshape the definition of a Web page and an audience. They also could accelerate a move away from big Web portals."

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_30/b4043071.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories

Aussies sue Google

Ok, I'm not an attorney or an Aussie...so the nuances of this are probably lost on me.

Looks like it is against Australian law to include the name of a competitive company in your advertising. It sounds like Trading Post (Telstra) used a few competitive car dealerships names in their Adword buy, which apparently is a legal no-no over there.

While using the dealers names seem pretty sketch (the fault of whomever set up the Adwords campaign), I think blaming Google might be a tad excessive. The comment that "sponsored" links were confused for organic results seems like BS, especially since it is standard practice for all SE's.

If there are any Australian Attorney's that specialize in Digital IP - would love to get a take from the ground.

http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/792088/fromItemId/142