Software giant Microsoft to spend $120M to fight its 'huge' image
As the world's biggest software company, Microsoft Corp. boasts 60,000 employees in 85 countries, and $40 billion U.S. in sales last year. But it apparently falls a little short in the irony-detecting department.
The Redmond, Washington-based company announced yesterday that it will spend $120 million a year on a new advertising campaign designed to convince people that is not, in fact, "a huge American company." The new campaign includes television, print and Internet spots highlighting Microsoft's development projects in 32 countries in which it operates. Independent film darling William H. Macy narrates the ads.
"We are often perceived as a huge American company," group advertising manager Mike Lucero told the Bloomberg financial news service.
"We wanted to be very specific about what we were doing in each country in education, innovation, economic opportunity and security."
Gwen Hardy, president of public relations and promotions at Grey Worldwide Public Relations in Vancouver, acknowledged that there is obvious irony in the new campaign, but said Microsoft's situation is not uncommon in the marketing world.
