Microsoft’s “i’m” campaign supported by paid evangelists
Posted by Admin @ May 28th, 2007 in Social Marketing
Microsoft turns to paid social advertising. For its socially based i’m campaign it’s recruiting ‘evangelists’ on student campuses to promote using it. 77 feels that viral advertising is better when it’s not paid for, but their angle of supporting good causes just might make up for this disadvantage.
The i’m campaign combines promoting Microsoft with supporting a good cause of the choice of its user. Microsoft donates a part of the advertising revenue of Windows Live Messenger to a good cause for every time a user starts a conversation. The conversation has an automatically added message that states the user is involved in the i’m campaign, profiling Microsoft as a socially committed organization.
Microsoft has recently hired RepNation to boost the use of this function. RepNation is an advertising company specialized in viral marketing, deploying socially influential people to promote certain products. We at 77 think this can be a shortcut to a lot of social buzz, but the result could be an ungrounded popularity. A brand’s evangelists being paid by a company can result in popularity without a solid base. Not having truly dedicated early adopters just might cause a viral campaign to crumble down before it really begins. The development of this story can teach us marketers something about the use of predefined social channels in general. The added feature here is the use of good causes in the campaign and it will be interesting to see if the i’m campaign will really take off.
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