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

It’s A New Day:

Microsoft Office 2007 Launch Campaign

[pic 1]Olufunlola Adeoye | Olusegun Ayanbiola | Gregory Crawford

What were the key lessons from the Office 2003 campaign? How should these be incorporated into the design of the Office 2007 campaign?

Leading up to 2003

                Microsoft Office was officially released during the year of 1989 (case, 1). At this point in time, Microsoft’s Office was a revolutionary idea. No other company or organization at this time were bundling multiple software applications into what Microsoft refers to as a suite. Microsoft Office first version included Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Schedule Plus (case, 1). The very next year Microsoft released their own operating system Microsoft Windows. The early success of Microsoft Office was tied to the success of Windows. Windows fairly instantly commanded the corporate user section of the market (case, 1). As window’s market share increase so did office’s. The case states that “By one estimate, Office had more than 95 percent share of application suite products by 2000” This highlights  the two pillars of Microsoft Office’s 2003 campaign:

• Microsoft Office’s initial success was in a companion role to Microsoft Windows.
• Microsoft Office become really popular to a point where essentially everyone had it and felt no need to upgrade.

Microsoft Office 2003 Campaign

Microsoft second Office launch was with their 2003 campaign. With this campaign there was a general theme “A New World of Work”. Under this new campaign theme, Microsoft’s marketers are aiming to change the perception of a specific group of people. These people are identified and labeled as Information Workers (IW) (case, 3). Information Workers are defined as people who use information to a help with decisions making (Rasmus, 2012). Microsoft beefed up their IW segment attack which spearheaded their Office 2003 campaign. Office 2003 is comprised of 23 products aimed at improving the productivity of those IWs. The 2003 campaign did not have a lot of new features however the main value proposition was to improve collaboration. To portray this, they utilized print advertisements alongside digital elements. This was effective in increase their exposure and popularity especially internationally.  In addition, the the digital element of their campaign increased the site traffic. However, the biggest takeaway from Microsoft’s Office 2003 campaign was that the product was not good enough for people to feel the need to upgrade; in addition, their efforts to sway perception of the IW were not effective.

Lessons from Office 2003

Microsoft’s marketer thought of two question when evaluating their 2003 campaign:

• Did we have the right target audience?
• Was the perception change too hard to effect?

After analysing these question Microsoft determined that they had the appropriate target market. However, their approach to reach out to this market was flawed. The case states that they use heavy copy advertisements. Microsoft felt this particular type of marketing did not intrigue viewers nor motivate them to learn more about Office 2003 (case, 3). Hindsight revealed that it would have been more beneficial if they could have more people use the product before purchasing. This would have helped reduce version confusion in their target market where 60 percent of users thought their old Office suite was the most recent.

                Microsoft was able to learn from their 2003 campaign release and could incorporate some of it to their 2007 campaign. In 2003 Microsoft found out it is difficult to get IWs to upgrade to a new version. Alex Holzer, an ad manager for Microsoft’s marketing group, state that most IWs had too emotional connection to Office (case, 4). Microsoft felt that targeting the ‘super engaged’ and ‘enthused practical’s segment would payoff. This segment of people possessed a high level of PC skills and positive attitudes about technology as a whole (case, 4). This market segment represented 32% of the market and was growing. However, they did rely solely on the one segment like in 2003. This time around they branched out to other market segments by engaging in corporate-level marketing. This is order to gainer business from IT segment and business decision makers (BDMs).  The new campaign is title “It’s a New Day” and is based on the formula: Version awareness + product experience = perception change

The product experience would come into factor when users visit Office2007.com and get hands on with the product before they purchase it. This strategy would help with version awareness and showcases any new features all while being more effective in change perception need for users to upgrade.

Do you agree with the two-step hypothesis that was the cornerstone of the office 2007 campaign?

                Microsoft’s two-step strategy was the cornerstone of the Office 2007 campaign and was effective in stimulating awareness and changing perception. The two-step strategy boiled down to a simple formula: version awareness + product experience = perception change

This formula was derived as response to the fail campaign of their Office 2003 launch. In 2003 Microsoft’s target market struggled with Version Awareness. With many IWs not knowing that their current version was dated. In addition, the 2003 campaign did not introduced their user to the product before it launched. Quickly learning from their shortcomings in the past Microsoft two-step strategy was the right move. It addressed and nullified any failings from 2003. All while bringing digital presence and experience for the users. In addition, 2007 campaign’s strategy came at a time during a shift in the marketing industry. Shifting from ‘exposure-based’ marketing to ‘experience-based’ market. The industry was moving towards engaging the user in something interactive rather than having customers view static advertisement. Many marketers felt this would not only create awareness but also enhance their perception of the product (case, 5). 

Drive to Experience

            The Microsoft Office advertising team considered the failures of the previous launch of Office 2003 when they began to focus on a more experience based marketing scheme. The challenge with using the cheaper and more broadly viewed digital  technique was that Microsoft Office is in a unique stage of maturity where most of its users are very satisfied with the product at any given time and don’t see the need to switch to a new version. This created the company objective of implementing tangible upgrades to the software that can be perceived by current users and the need to effectively market these upgrades to consumers. The marketing of these upgrades came with its own set of complications as users needed to not only be aware of the upgrades and inspired to add them to their use but they also needed to feel comfortable in their ability to maneuver the enhanced software as to maximize to ease of upgrading.