Microsoft Trusts Zune Ads To 'I'm A PC' Agency

Dan Frommer | November 14, 2008 5:52 PM

bill-gates-zune.jpgMicrosoft (MSFT) must be pleased with its "I'm A PC" ads: It's giving Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the ad agency that created them -- and those Seinfeld-Gates ads -- more work. Specifically, it's hoping Crispin can give its Zune MP3 player account some zing, Ad Age reports.

They probably can't do much worse than the last few shops who've tried to advertise the Zune: TNS says Microsoft put $41 million behind its U.S. Zune account last year and $18 million in the first half of this year. Yet Apple's (AAPL) iPod continues to dominate the MP3 player industry.

See Also:
Microsoft Runs Out Of Celebrities, Crowdsources Latest Commercial
Microsoft Memo: DO NOT PAY ATTENTION TO APPLE
Seinfeld Microsoft Ads Everyone Hates Not So Bad, After All

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8 Comments

siftin-com zune search (URL) said:
Zune can surely use a better marketing. It has been under-represented compared to it's competitor ipod family. I think it can use a facelift as well :)
Sumedh Jigjinni said:
It is much easier for Microsoft to advertise and market its Windows product since it is the industry leader and everyone already knows what it is. People enjoy ads for things they already have and are planning on purchasing.

However with the Zune, Microsoft is engaging in an uphill battle against the iPod, not in terms of popularity and sales but also better branded and iconic ads. Since its inception, the Zune has not brought much extra to the table as an MP3 player. It never capitalized on its Wi-Fi capabilities and now the iPod Touch has taken full advantage of Wi-Fi.

When the Zune has some features that can be marketed or a style that an audience can aspire to, only then should Microsoft actually spend money on advertising the product.
Jeremy Wa said:
Zune is a me-too product raised to the googleplex power.

It offers nothing incrementally and burdens the user with stupid (only MSFT could agree to such stupid stuff) DRM.

Like WinMo, Xbox, SPoT, LiveSearch, PlaysForSure, etc. Zune will be slowly put to rest without ever having earned a dime for shareholders. It is another exercise in futility by a company uniquely incapable of impulse control..

(Speaking of futility, did I mention Vista?)


Al said:
Microsoft likes to have a finger in every pie, yet, after all these years, only Windows and Office generates any revenue.

Why their shareholders let them get away with the staggering losses in their other numerous ventures is beyond me.
@Al said:
Because Microsoft also earns revenue from:
xbox, sql server, share point, enterprise management products.
In short, Microsoft currently loses money only in search.
@Al said:
oh, forgot to add, most of them are billion dollar business except for xbox which is alos on its way to become big pretty soon.
please do some reserach.

@Dan,

In case you do not know, there is one product which is running at distant second place for 20+ years in spite of ad - yeah , I am talking about MAC. give zune some chance - it is much more than a me too product - just do some research.

don't just go for page hits - see what happened to gawker

Gui said:
Let us see what Bogusky can do for them. For those not in the know-how, he is pretty much the best (or at least the most renowned) american creative director in recent history. In the business there's a small cult following, for leveraging ideas out of the box. I'm a PC was not off-the-wall crazy, but it had a rock-solid strategy behind it,and that is what a client like microsoft needed. Seinfeld was was a good first pitch, but the latter one was an out. The funny part is -and i'm betting a beer on this- the whole thing was probably done in mac computers, just like in any other agency of the world.
Garbanzo said:
@Al: I thought that was Google's corporate strategy -- make money on one or two things and everything else is a dog or loss leader. Perhaps Microsoft and Google aren't that different after all.

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