Between a rock and a hard place

One of the Microsofties and I often argue about Microsofts lack of (inability, unwillingness) advertising in the mainstream media. This is really a double edged sword and any change could potentially piss off a large number of customers or partners so here is my take on why Microsoft’s marketing, for the lack of a better word, sucks:

Microsoft has never successfully marketed to end users.

Microsoft has always perfectly targeted technology decision makers.

Microsoft excels at marketing things like servers and workstations to those that are in the market to buy and manage them for a business. They even do a fair bit of promotions and incentives around the office.

However, look at the mainstream media advertising for Vista for example. When was the last time you saw a TV ad for Microsoft *anything* – how about the ads for Blackberry and Mac? I saw at least a dozen of them last night during the NBA playoffs.

Why doesn’t Microsoft market to the mainstream? Well, for one, Microsoft software is generally too difficult to use. Chalk it up to “choice” and the complexity that comes from it. The more choices the people have, the more uneasy they get on an impulse buy. Don’t think buying a shiny laptop with the purple back cover is an impulse decision? Do I want one with a big screen, small screen, big drive, small drive, laptop, tablet, blah. Try the same at an Apple store.

The second reason, que flamethrowers SPFs, is that any attempt to market something that goes around the gatekeepers gets met with huge resistance. Look at Microsoft’s online offerings – most people believe they will be put out of business if Microsoft markets them to end users in a significant way. Who needs a server if they can get Exchange and SharePoint for $10?

So what is Microsoft to do? From a purely impartial point, I say take the money and don’t ask any questions. Microsoft makes bulk of its money from sales of office software to businesses – windows client, server and office suites. So, do you just take all the money pouring in or do you go out of your way to change what has worked up until now and risk pissing off a large part of your partner base?

The decision seems fairly easy when you put it this way.

However, Microsoft should be afraid that mainstream advertising actually works and in the same way that it is not willing to back its partners and its brand in a very public way from an all out assault by Apple and Blackberry, it’s partners too will take the easy way out. You want a Mac and a Blackberry? Deal. Who are we not to take your money? After all, we make money on services and as my pal Dave says: “I will manage anything that can be measured.”

Microsoft did a lot of right things over the years, it earned the loyalty of a lot of people and adoration of a lot of IT professionals. But if you have been reading this blog over the past few months, you’re starting to see that brand leadership and loyalty is starting to crumble. Not due to anything that the partners are doing, but by a combination of things that Microsoft is doing and a stack of things that they are not doing enough.

Microsoft, through people in roles like Kevin Beares and Eric Ligman, needs to find a way to open up a conversation with a larger audience. The main problem is that the message that is reaching us, is not reaching the customer.

And for what its worth, the message that you read here is directly influenced by the pushback from the partners and customers. I’ve got no horse in the Blackberry vs. Windows Mobile race, I’m just showing you the odds.