If Microsoft sold a lifestyle, would you buy it?

In the Northern Hemisphere, Autumn is typically a time of bright colors and falling leaves. Perhaps Microsoft has moved south of the equator to Spring, because the company is poised for brand rebirth -- a reawakening of key consumer brands.

Six brands -- Bing, Xbox, Windows Live, Windows Mobile, Windows 7 and Zune -- are coming to market as new versions and/or marketing campaigns. No single brand will revitalize Microsoft's overall consumer image. But combined, these brands could revive the company's consumer brand profile. I predict that they also are Microsoft's last stand. Failure now will resign Microsoft's brand image to large businesses.

There is a seventh brand, which is as important as the other six combined: Microsoft Store. But that is more a 2010 story, as the company only plans to open two retail locations, both in the United States, this year.

Key to the six (OK, seven) brands' success is marketing, which Microsoft has excelled at for much of 2009. Last year, I harshly criticized Microsoft advertising agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky for its early handling of the "I'm a PC" campaign. In my December 2008 recommendations for 2009, I told Microsoft to "fire your ad agency." But the marketing came together in early 2009. "The Rookies" and "Laptop Hunters" -- launched in February and March, respectively -- are simply great advertising campaigns. Bing is even better. I was wrong about Crispin, Porter + Bogusky.

Good Marketing Demands Advertiser Commitment

To really succeed, good marketing requires cash, commitment, consistency and creativity for starters and also patience -- willingness to let a marketing campaign succeed. In 2006, Microsoft gave up too quickly on the Windows Vista "Wow" campaign, afterward pulling back nearly all Windows marketing for about 18 months. Meanwhile, Apple seized control of Windows messaging with its persistently jabbing "Get a Mac" commercials. Microsoft is on a marketing roll right now, but the company has to stick with it and extend it.

Good marketing:

• Tells a story -- and doing so is aspirational
• Promotes a lifestyle -- and with it a sense of belonging and community associated with the brand
• Shows people why their lives will be better -- how they will be happier -- for using products X, Y or Z
• Makes people feel good -- and by association brings up that good feeling whenever seeing the brand or product

Microsoft's current big consumer campaigns -- for Bing and Windows -- meet these criteria quite well. But there is a missing undercurrent that Microsoft must bring to the surface as it markets the consumer brands: Lifestyle. The company has got to better sell a Microsoft lifestyle, and it's perhaps no coincidence that the six brands are collectively foundation for such a thing.

The most successful brands sell a lifestyle. Among high-tech companies, Apple, Nokia and Research in Motion are exceptionally good at lifestyle marketing. In August I asked: "What is the Microsoft lifestyle?" I couldn't find it, and I had been looking hard for a long time. But as new Bing features, Zune 4.0 software and Zune HD come to market this week and Microsoft prepares Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows 7 for October launches, hints of a larger lifestyle pitch are coalescing. The Microsoft lifestyle has been fragmented for too many years. Around these products, Windows Live and Xbox, a tighter Microsoft lifestyle could emerge.

But Microsoft has got to sell it, and that's a message CEO Steve Ballmer and his honchos must hear and act on. Laptop Hunters shows that Microsoft can do good brand marketing and seize the messaging away from a competitor (e.g., Apple). But Bing shows the real power of good marketing. The Bing TV commercials are clever and catchy -- and they frequently air on many primetime television shows. I record most TV programs to skip the ads, but I almost always stop for a Bing commercial. What about you?

Marketing matters. Two summers ago, number of searches at Ask.com increased by over 10 percent in a single month, according to ComScore. Not coincidentally, Ask.com was running an aggressive TV ad campaign. Fast forward to 2009. Microsoft launches the Bing brand with a massive marketing campaign, and the results show in consistently increasing search share. Yesterday, Nielsen Online said that Bing's US searches increased 22.1 percent month-on-month in August, bringing search share to 10.7 percent.

The Google Lesson

Now it's time for my bold assertion: Right now, Bing is Microsoft's most important consumer brand. It's Google that shows why and perhaps that Microsoft's search deal with Yahoo is smart after all.

Google is a marketing amorphism. Until recently, Google did little to directly market its products. Yet Google has strong consumer brand awareness and offers a clearly definable lifestyle around Apps, search and other products or services. Like Windows, Google search is something most people use everyday. But people are aware they use Google, because they must actively open a search page where there is the colorful name logo.

People can easily forget they use Windows; there is no strong brand identification, and operating systems function too much as utilities. From a branding perspective, the best thing Microsoft has done for the operating system in years (other than advertising) is to replace the "Start" button with the Windows logo.

Ballmer has obsessed about Google as a competitor to a fault. Microsoft has focused too much chasing Google when improving its own products and their marketing mattered more. For that reason, I initially dismissed the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal. But in retrospect, the deal makes sense for a different reason: Branding and lifestyle marketing. The more people that use Bing everyday, the better for Microsoft's core brand -- at the least. Bing marketing and the Yahoo deal are sure to increase the number of people who touch a Microsoft brand every day. Sorry, Steve Ballmer, Windows Live isn't touch enough.

Microsoft can't be sure consumers will upgrade to Windows 7, certainly not when. According to analysts, most people still use Windows XP -- not Vista. But Microsoft can assure that people use Bing, if the marketing and Yahoo deal are there. Already, Bing is gaining share. Search is a utility most people use most every day, so the brand can only gain from this exposure. From Bing and its associated and Windows Live services, Microsoft can push a lifestyle around communications, convenience, mobility and value, among other attributes.

Four Digital Lifestyle Hubs

While Bing's importance won't diminish, other Microsoft brands will grow to overshadow it, principally Windows 7 during holiday 2008. Windows is Microsoft's most important lifestyle hub, not just for consumers but businesses. Now that the Windows Live team has joined with the broader Windows group, I expect product/service synergies and lifestyle opportunities to increase. Microsoft will have to punch it home with creative, consistent and committed marketing.

In an ideal scenario the six brands would connect the Microsoft lifestyle around four hubs: Bing/Windows Live, Windows 7/Windows Live, Windows Mobile/Bing/Windows Live and Xbox/Xbox Live and Zune/Zune Marketplace. But Microsoft's mobile strategy is a train wreck. Windows Mobile 6.5 isn't what Microsoft needs to hold back upstarts Apple and Google or the revitalizing Nokia. However, Microsoft deserves huge praise for coordinating a single mobile OS launch across multiple wireless carriers, as it plans in October for Windows Mobile 6.5. It's an amazing feat and something that should scare Apple and Google executives witless. If Microsoft can do this with a weak Windows Mobile OS release, what could the company do with a strong product?

Microsoft's mobile story -- the one that matters -- is confined to Zune HD. There Microsoft will confront strong comparisons to Apple and iPod touch and criticism for a weak smartphone OS strategy (It's already started, search the blogosphere). But Zune HD isn't an iPod touch wannabe. It's something more and something different. The device is a portable media player first above all else and perhaps the last in the category. Convergence that includes telephony is the future -- and, I hope, a Zune phone. Any PMP shouuld only be a placeholder for something to come.

Fortunately, Microsoft has a strong lifestyle message around Zune 4.0 software and the Zune HD. It's about consuming high-quality digital content on the go, and that lifestyle extends to Windows through Media Center and eventually to Xbox. Around Zune and Xbox, Microsoft is pushing an entertainment lifestyle. By the way, so is Apple with iPod touch, iTunes and portable gaming. I'm waiting for Microsoft to extend Xbox gaming to Zune. Some unsolicited advice for Microsoft: The Xbox Live team and not the Windows Mobile group should control the Zune applications store.

In a future post, I will explore how the four lifestyle hubs fit together today and should fit better in the future. For now, I'll close by giving Steve Ballmer and his honchos some advice: Advertise, advertise, advertise. If you don't control the lifestyle messaging, some competitor will. Must I say Apple?