The 10 companies shortlisted for Media Player of the Year in Marketing’s Nov. 14 issue were at the top of their game in 2011. We’ll be featuring each one online as a lead-up to our January 2012 issue, where you’ll find out which media company will reign supreme.
Microsoft
While it’s playing in a field with some fierce competition, in 2011 Microsoft served marketers a rich menu of digital advertising possibilities
On one of the last summery days in September, a white food-vendor’s truck parked outside the Toronto offices of Starcom, Mediavest and Mindshare with a simple menu of lunchables.
Emblazoned on its side were the words “Sometimes the best stories come from unexpected places. Like a food truck.” It was the first day of a media agency “Storyteller” outreach campaign focusing on the agencies’ staff themselves. While snacking on turkey-bacon clubs, senior strategists were asked to record their thoughts on the ever-dividing media landscape. Those who did so saw their responses posted as hi-res video in online display ads for the media company behind the grub: Microsoft—appropriately one of the hungriest media players of 2011.
Globally, Microsoft has been turning up the volume and frequency on their promotional efforts with growing visibility in Cannes and at New York’s Advertising Week. In Canada, its profile had long been linked with Bell Sympatico. Now a stand-alone brand, its various media appendages (Microsoft Advertising, MSN.ca and properties such as GeekTown.ca) are tasked with building relationships with advertisers and media buyers with a young, newly built team.
In 2011, Microsoft launched two B2B campaigns that leveraged its heritage as a tech company. In a year when conversations about online display focused on functionality and aesthetics (think AOL’s Project Devil), Microsoft debuted some 20 new online display formats with names like Peelback, Sidekick and Filmstrip. Each is an iteration on the same idea: they use the usual suite of toys (Flash animations and video) to attract attention inside and around ad units. But instead of redirecting to a separate site when clicked, they expand within the current page. Each reorganizes the host page’s content and puts it back in place when the ad experience is done. This design isn’t exclusive to Microsoft’s ads, but because it was adopted across all its new formats, it demonstrated that the company knew what consumers now expect: fewer interruptions and smoother online experiences.
The Filmstrip format was given a particular PR push to demonstrate its functionality to both consumers and advertisers. The 300-by-3,000-pixel unit is designed as a series of connected frames that users scroll through to find information or entertainment that appeals to them. Each frame can have unique video or flash tools demonstrating different product aspects and link to different web destinations. Advertisers can also measure which section gets the most attention. After Ford and Dodge piloted Filmstrip in the U.S. and Europe, RIM bought the first one in Canada and received 24 million unique visitors during its run.
To sweeten the deal on its inventory, Microsoft Advertising Canada has also been releasing free research whitepapers on a variety of topics (online shopping, the multi-screen consumer and moms’ online habits among others). The papers have reached nearly 10,000 downloads, and media industry insiders say the research is solid and a good “value-added” service.
There’s more! Check out the Nov. 14 issue of Marketing for the full profile, and subscribe to find out who will be named the Media Player of the Year for 2011
