Did Microsoft Steal My Idea?
As many of you know, I’m in school full-time getting my MBA at Baruch College (Zicklin) in New York. Last March I entered the Baruch Microsoft Marketing Competition. The goal of the competition was to come up with a marketing plan that would use a $5 million budget to achieve 50,000 downloads of 3 or more Windows Live Suite services (Messenger, Write, Photo Gallery, Mail, etc) and 20,000 registrations of Windows OneCare ($50 a year).
My teammate, Jason, and I carefully weighed our options. We could play it safe and come up with a marketing plan that a typical agency would come up with. This would entail a nice mix of search, display and print advertising to the relevant target markets. Or we could come up with something totally unique and show the judges something they haven’t seen before. We chose the latter option.
We immediately took aim at the metrics we were being judged on. Downloads don’t tell you much. Anyone can download something. Using the product is what’s important. We focused on product usage, not downloads. Inspired by AMEX points and Marlboro points, we created a program called Microsoft LivePoints. Users accrue points by interacting with the products they downloaded. They also accrue points by referring friends. Users with the most points win weekly, monthly, and yearly prizes. It’s not the best program. But at least it wasn’t typical.
We had all the details written out in our proposal document. Got accepted into the semi-finals where we presented our plan to high-level Microsoft executives. We made it to the finals and presented to some even higher-level Microsoft executives. Eventually we came in 2nd place. The criticism we got on our plan that while the execs loved the focus on use rather than downloads, they felt the plan required some implementation on Microsoft’s end and they have a history of not implementing well (I’m not kidding. That is what they said). We ended up getting a couples of Zunes as prizes. It was good experience and I’m glad I did it.
Last week Microsoft announced a new program called SearchPerks. The program allows users to accrue tickets by using their search engine. Users can submit these tickets for prizes. While somewhat different, this idea sounds eerily similar to the pitch my friend Jason and I gave to Microsoft execs 6 months ago.
Check out my presentation from the competition embedded below. Then check out SearchPerks. Our team was named after the first prize…an XBox, Zune and a dinner with Microsoft executives.
[slideshare id=650149&doc=msftpresentationforblog-1223671148154395-9&w=425]
What do you think? Do you think my pitch had any influence on this new SearchPerks program? I’ll let you decide.
[polldaddy poll="986858"]
Whoa…what were the terms of the competition – did anyone sign an NDA? Did the business plans become MS’s property?
A good friend of mine works for Microsoft–he constantly tells me stories of inefficient bureaucracy, screwed-up communication even within teams, and other Dilbert-esque tales of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing.
While I wouldn’t totally discount the possibility that MS took your idea, I think it’s far more likely this a case of “great minds think alike.” I’d bet my next paycheck the search team never even knew about the competition put on by the marketing division.
Barry, neither party signed anything. There wasn’t a T&C agreement for the competition either.
Marc, the Live Search marketing team is in NY and they’re the ones who put on the competition. It might be a coincidence but the search team definitely knew about the competition.
It’s great that you used Frontpage for the presentation in front of the Microsoft executives
Aleks, I think you mean Keynote. And yes, I did use Keynote to make the presentation and then ported it over to PowerPoint. I just like it better.
Sounds fishy to me.