Microsoft is Small?

That’s the goal of their new ads. Those ads will be costing $120M/yr to get that point across. It seems they’re trying to combat the idea that they’re this huge software company.

“We are often perceived as a huge American company,”

Folks, I think that’s at least one time where perception is pretty much dead-on accurate. They are huge and they are an American company. Microsoft has over 60,000 employees, in over 100 countries. That’s pretty big!

It seems the ads are going to focus on many of Microsoft’s activities in other countries related to education, innovation, economy and security. To me, this just doesn’t make sense. Granted, we’re all hearing that the new big is small according to Seth Godin. There’s obviously backlash in general with people not wanting to work for a large corporation, trading that experience for the feeling of a small, dynamic start-up type of company. I just don’t think that’s going to work with Microsoft, at least not in the way they’re doing it.

If Microsoft wasn’t as large as they were, then they wouldn’t be having quite the impact they are in these other countries. The challenge they need to overcome is the perception of what it’s like to work with Microsoft or be a customer of Microsoft. They need to spend that money on building their one-to-one feeling with every contact. If it were me running the show, I’d do this by seeking more opportunities to connect with individual customers and communicating about what it’s like to be a part of this dynamic company. Start shedding the stereotypes and overcoming the little perceptions. Those items will go along way.

Source: Microsoft ads aim to erase ‘huge’ image