What Were the Key Lessons from the office 2003 Campaign? How Should These Be Incorporated into the Design of the office 2007 Campaign?

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This lead the marketing team to focus on the experiential marketing strategy because of its popularity in company product advertising and the benefits of digital marketing from the Office 2003 launch. Companies such as Geico and Red Bull had used digital experiences to enhance the perception of their products and attract high volumes of potential customers without spending as much as is required of traditional advertising. Geico had specifically garnered praise as consumers could visit its marketing website and participate in a multifaceted interactive experience. Although Microsoft had the benefit over these companies of being digitally based, allowing the product to be experienced online, it is difficult for the team to measure the success of their experience driven campaign. The plan to rollout a three-pronged experience of a demo, an online trial and downloadable trial was hindered by the possibility of disjointed on incomplete use by potential customers. The team could not control at which point in the process a user would begin their experience or if they used all segments offered. Furthermore, it was not known if there was a comparable measurement that could tell how effective each stage in the experience was in getting customers to perceive the benefits of the upgrade and which aspects of the experience were most effective.

The experience is a necessary part of advertising plan centered around the launch of Microsoft Office 2007 because of the potential return on investment associated with its usage and the digital nature of the product. The lack of knowledge of the benefits of each aspects increases the need to produce key measurable effects to find the best usage of the experience advertising and make the launch as successful as possible.

Allocation Mix

The allocation mix is influenced by the estimated effectiveness of the strategies being used to reach the advertising teams goals. Since the team wants to increase perceived benefit of upgrading the software to information workers, who can recommend the product to business decision makers, they need to invest in the digital plan to illustrate to new softwares superiority over its predecessor. This digital advertising needs to be the majority of the campaign while being supplemented by the awareness driving traditional print ads. The ability of the product to be experienced online gives Microsoft an even greater motivation to provide a dynamic platform for potential users to experience the product digitally. This is also supported by the industry because of the need to Office 2007 to show its advantages over competition like Google Docs as they fight for market share. This means that the media budget can be decrease overall with less spending on more expensive print advertising but there needs to a large upfront investment creating and maintaining the digital experience. The traditional spending needs to focus on the most effective mediums to drive awareness of the interactive tools available for consumers.

What do you think about digital experiences? Are they more engaging than traditional advertising? What do you think about the experiences Microsoft selected?

In 2007, marketers were seeking to provide potential consumers with marketing that focused more on experiences, rather than exposure. (case, 5). Exposure-based advertisements allowed for far reach and a heightened awareness to products being marketed. However, with the focus on interaction becoming more and more important to companies, marketers began developing digital experience that ultimately changed the landscape of marketing. (case, 5). Examples of digital experiences include Geico’s “Caveman’s Crib”, which allowed users to view commercials, download applications, and visit the virtual home of the popular characters from the company’s of television advertising campaign. (case, 5).

Digital experiences are extremely effective marketing tactics. By allowing consumers to immerse themselves in already existing marketing, consumers can become more invested and develop a stronger brand loyalty. Similarly, digital experiences allow customers to interact the brand further than they would by just seeing an advertisement, making them far more engaging than traditional advertising. For instance, with Red Bull’s “Roshambull”, a Facebook application based on the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors” allowed users to wager on their skills. (case, 5). While this experience had nothing to do with the drink “Red Bull”, it allowed users to associate an activity they enjoyed with the brand, and subsequently further popularize the drink. This a clear indicator that digital experiences, are in fact more engaging than traditional advertising.

When Microsoft Office decided to redesign the interface for their 2007 release, a digital experience was extremely vital to integrating users to the new software. This tactic, coupled with the less than satisfactory perception-change results of the 2003 “New Era” campaign, propelled Microsoft to incorporate digital experiences in the 2007 launch. (case, 3, 5). Though other products enjoyed large success from digital experiences, Microsoft had reservations initially because Office was a digital product. This forced serious creativity from Microsoft officials, and ultimately they decided on providing three digital experiences: an online product demonstration, an online trial (test drive), and a downloadable trial. (case, 6). These different experiences were all centered on allowing users to experience the new Microsoft Office, all while requiring varying commitment levels from users, to ultimately change overall perceptions of the product.

Microsoft’s take on digital experiences was a brilliant marketing tactic. Allowing customers to interact with the brand new interface at varying commitment levels allowed consumers to slowly familiarize themselves with the new Office. It also easily created sort of a dependence on the software at each level, which ultimately garnered revenue for the company, because people would purchase the new program as a result. The placement of the digital experiences both on the office2007.com website and the other sites selected by Microsoft served the ultimately important purpose of awareness, which solidified the campaign as a phenomenal marketing move.

How should Microsoft measure the impact of digital experiences?

Since digital experiences were fairly new terrain in marketing, there were several challenges in measuring their effectiveness. (case, 8). A key metric in evaluating the success (or lack thereof), or the new campaign would be analyzing the return on investment but there also were other metrics to consider. Unit of measurement posed