Industry profiles Mich Mathews Senior VP, Central Marketing Group for Microsoft


■ ADVERTISER INTERVIEW A community is for life, not just for Christmas TOPIC.


Microsoft’s marketing team is in the middle of one of its busiest years ever. Brand caretaker Mich Mathews talks to Pip Brooking about adjusting to new marketing realities, embracing digital as a relevant medium, and acting upon feedback from customers


Many people would happily compare a client-agency relationship to a marriage, but few would introduce a gardening analogy. However, when you think that gardens are only beautiful and bear fruit if given adequate care, Mich Mathews, senior vice-president, Central Marketing Group for Microsoft, has a point. But what about likening social


communities to puppies? That’s an analogy she has borrowed from a peer at Coca-Cola, and it’s a good one. When you think that communities “are for life, not just for Christmas” the comparison comes into its own. “Everyone wants one and thinks ‘how cute’, but it grows up and you have serious responsibilities,” she laughs, in all seriousness.


CARETAKING THE BUSINESS When everyone is caught up in the serious issue of change, is it appropriate that Mathews compares it all to a game? “Business is a big game – it’s about having the right players, the right strategy, deploying them in the right way, studying the opposition,” she says. Again, it’s refreshing logic. Mathews joined Microsoft in 1993, and as caretaker for one of the world’s most valuable brands, one that many people love to hate, and one that has launches taking place left, right and centre, she needs to keep her wits about her. Be it Bing, Windows 7, Hotmail, Cloud


strategies, Project Natal or the Windows phone, there is plenty to make a noise about, but the products don’t share strategies. “They can’t,” Mathews says. “That implies all our customers are the same, the products are in the same part of their life cycle, and competitive frameworks are the same.” While Bing is about redefining a category, Windows marketing


42 M&M Q2 2010


is about fighting apathy. The one area where common strategies do come into play is digital – what Microsoft is doing in social, how it is utilising its own properties (because “we should use those before we spend a dime”) and what it is doing paid versus owned. The pressure is on for Microsoft to


walk the walk in terms of digital, which Mathews claims now constitutes half of its media spend. This year it sits at around 46% because the big launches have seen more money than usual poured into TV. But even that suggests that the company hasn’t got its blinkers on in terms of what constitutes a relevant medium for the brand. A more mature approach to digital also means that Mathews


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“With Windows you are marketing to a billion people and you don’t have to go very far to find interesting stories”


takes community responsibilities seriously. A step change came after the disaster of the Vista launch in 2008. Now, Microsoft embraces any sort of feedback. It can be argued that the successful Windows 7 launch is a direct result of asking five million people for their feedback at a beta phase. The ‘My idea’ campaign then capitalises on that. “With Windows you are marketing to a billion people and you don’t have to go very far to find interesting stories. The strategy has been to give a big old bear hug to the ‘I’m a PC’ movement.” Mathews is “pleasantly surprised”


at how everyone is adjusting to the new marketing realities. “Orchestration and planning is at the root of success. How we work across agencies has become very


complicated,” she says. It would be foolish of any agency to think they had it cracked, given Microsoft’s scale across 31 markets. “But where once they


were in competition with each other, now they are very adult, very healthy.” ○


Microsoft in numbers


$54.6bn The amount Microsoft’s


revenue has increased, from just $3.75bn, since Mathews joined the company in 1993


73,750 The number of employees Microsoft has taken on since 1993


$500m Microsoft’s adspend in 2009; this is likely to increase this year


90m The number of Windows 7 units sold in its first nine months, making the platform Microsoft’s fastest selling product ever


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