Microsoft not to ‘Fly’ with the Windows XP campaign

Scott Hillis

SEATTLE: Microsoft Corp. will kick off the advertising campaign for its

upcoming Windows XP operating system next week with the slogan, "Yes You

Can", after "Prepare to Fly" was scrapped in the wake of the

Sept. 11 hijack attacks, company executives said on Thursday.

Microsoft's ad blitz is part of a four-month, $200 million marketing program

around Windows XP, the latest version of the software giant's flagship product.

Many in the PC and software industries are hoping Windows XP will breathe

life into the sectors, which have been hammered by the slowing economy and

sagging consumer confidence. Windows XP will hit retail store shelves on Oct. 25

but is available already pre-installed on some new PCs.

To start building buzz, a 15-second prime time television "teaser"

will debut on Monday Night Football on Oct. 15, Stephanie Ferguson, Microsoft's

PC experience marketing director, told reporters.

That will be followed with longer 60-second and 30-second ads on Oct. 18

showing people soaring over fields and through offices, in what is an echo of

the abandoned flying theme.

The spots, which will also hit cable and late-night time slots, show off

Windows XP features like digital music, videoconferencing and video editing.

Start up Madonna



And the new Windows theme music? Observers have wondered what song Microsoft
would pick to promote Windows XP after the company paid millions of dollars to

The Rolling Stones for use of their hit "Start Me Up" in Windows 95

ads.

After listening to hundreds of songs, Ferguson said she and her team settled

on Madonna's "Ray of Light." "It's powerful, it's upbeat, it's

positive, it fits with the theme, which is 'Yes You Can'," Ferguson said.

Ferguson declined to say how much Microsoft was paying for use of the song,

and also declined to give details of how much of the overall $200 million would

be spent on ads alone. Apart from TV spots, Microsoft will also roll out print

ads in magazines and newspapers, banner ads online and billboards in major

cities, Ferguson said.

"This is going to be a pretty loud launch. We'll have a pretty strong

presence," Ferguson said. The company is also going ahead with an Oct. 25

launch party in New York City.

After the Sept. 11 attacks in which hijackers slammed passenger jets into New

York's World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C.,

killing 5,600 people, Microsoft considered canceling the event.

"We did have discussions about, is Oct. 25 still the launch date? Is New

York still an appropriate venue?" Shawn Sanford, group product manager for

Windows, told reporters. But the party got the green light again after New York

Mayor Rudy Giuliani spoke directly with Microsoft co-founder and Chairman Bill

Gates, Sanford said.

Asked if Madonna would perform at the event, Sanford and Ferguson paused with

smiles on their faces and glanced at each other before Sanford said people would

have to wait and see.

Flying theme is grounded



But while the Big Apple bash is still on, the attacks did force marketers to
scrap their original slogan, "Prepare to Fly" and focus on "Yes

You Can" to convey the idea that Windows XP will let users do more than

ever with their computers, Ferguson said.

"We did make some changes," Ferguson said. "We were more

explicitly using the term 'fly', never expecting it to be literal but making an

analogy for empowerment and freedom."

Other marketing activities will include 62 other launch events around the

world that will reach an estimated 100,000 people and distributing 11 million

CDs containing demonstrations of XP features in stores and with magazines,

Ferguson said. Microsoft's ad agency is McCann Erickson, a unit of ad giant

Interpublic Group of Cos. Inc.

Despite widespread consensus that XP is the best version of Windows yet,

Sanford said it would be hard to top the Windows 95 launch six years ago, when

the PC industry was booming and people lined up at midnight to snatch up the

first copies.

"It's just such a different world than '95," Sanford said. "I

don't think anything will compare to that product in that time ... but this is

actually a bigger evolutionary step than Windows 95, but the time we're in is

just a little different."

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.