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Microsoft has launched a new offline/online campaign to encourage existing Office users to upgrade Office 2003. In the accompanying print ad in PC Magazine, Microsoft urges Office 97 users to "evolve" to Office 2003.

Are Microsoft's Marketing Techniques Prehistoric?
Both the print/online campaign utilize a prehistoric dinosaur theme. Sigh. What a wasted opportunity to use what I call "conversational marketing" - e.g. blogs, podcsating and RSS.

View the campaign here

It's no secret that Microsoft is having difficulty getting Office 97 and 2000 users to upgrade to the latest version. Most people use a small percentage of the Office suite's full feature set and feel fine with what they have. So I don't criticize Microsoft for launching an online marketing campaign. Office is such a part of their bread and butter.

However it seems to me like they're trying the same ol' stuff they did back in 1995. Where has the innovative Microsoft Office marketing machine gone? The company's army of 1200+ employee bloggers do more to market Microsoft's products/services these days than anything the corporation has done in years.

Someone please post a link to this blog post on the Redmond Sharepoint server. Here are three ways Microsoft could use our agency's "find, listen, engage and empower" approach to encourage business users to upgrade to Office 2003...

1. Find referenceable users and empower them to blog on your site - Use PubSub, Feedster, MSN Search and customer data, etc. and find the most vocal Office 2003 enthusiasts in the blogosphere. Initiate a dialogue with them and, if they're interested, give them blogs where they can regularly chronicle how they use Office 2003 to improve their daily productivity. Let the customers tell your story.
2. Have loyal Office 2000 and 2003 users debate each other head-to-head - Find two users of the Office suite - one a loyal 2000 user, another a 2003 fan - and let them them debate each other on the merits of their choice of suite via a shared blog.
3. Give out free upgrades - Seed 500 bloggers with free upgrades to Office 2003 and index their posts via an RSS-powered portal.

Dinosaurs don't sell Office suites, Microsoft. Think different. Think conversational. I know you can do it. Your 1200+ employee bloggers do so everyday.

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.