When Did Microsoft Lose Its Marketing Mojo?

There are so many ways to pick apart this Steve Ballmer interview in BusinessWeek. Robert Scoble takes exception with Ballmer’s buy vs. build philosophy and how Microsoft doesn’t understand the true value of some of these Web 2.0 brands. I, on the other hand, can’t stop thinking about this upcoming orphan of a product called Zune.

Ballmer notes that he “would have been hell-bent and determined six years ago to call Xbox the Windows Game Machine.” I agree that would have been a bad decision. But now that they’ve invested so much in the Xbox name, why wouldn’t they play off that for their Zune product?! He notes that “we’re really building consumer marketing muscle.” Huh? No Steve, what you’re doing is missing an opportunity to build upon the Xbox branding theme that you’ve already invested zillions of dollars in.

iPod, iTunes, iMac. Need I say more? Anytime someone mentions an iWhatever product, they know right away it’s from Apple. It’s Branding 101 and Microsoft used to be pretty darned good at it. When did they lose their way?

Comments

[Erik]

Good post Joe; you have probably already seen this, but it not, it's a very funny take on the differences between MSFT and Apple's marketing. (Actually produced by MS, so the rumor goes.)