Microsoft Shifts Vista Marketing Strategy

"That was just a moment in time," Microsoft's Neil Charney, general manager of Windows marketing, says when I ask him why the company's "Wow" campaign around Windows Vista didn't have the desired effect.It seems the hazy general approach didn't work; now Microsoft's going with more targeted marketing strategy. "Oftentimes we force our customers to eat through a fire hose and over time we've learned to target to really specific things," says Barry Goffe, director of Windows Vista Ultimate.

That means no more "Wow." Now, Goffe and Charney say, the company is making sure that prospective buyers know from a feature level what's different about Windows Vista.

Microsoft is doing things like working with Best Buy to make sure a Windows Vista machine is used in Best Buy's camera department to show how easy it is to connect a digital camera to a computer. The company is working with OEMs to showcase specific scenarios of consumers using Vista in advertising.

"The scenarios are really driving Vista," Charney says. "So we're now speaking to that more than making general statements about Vista."

Now, if they can only get over those specific consumer concerns that Vista is too slow and has too many compatibility concerns. It's those word-of-mouth anti-advertisements that may remain the most difficult to combat.