Microsoft employee evangelist Heather Hamilton is my darling today (Please don’t tell my wife!). She writes quite convincingly that “Sometimes, when something looks like a fizzy scoop, it totally isn’t.” Heather responds to a weird story circulating the blogs—soda cans marketing Bing to Microsoft employees. Anyone who works for Microsoft or has visited the campus should know there are fridges on every floor (or there sure seem to be) filled with soda and other beverages. Microsoft coolers pack a better selection than my local 7-Eleven, and for better price: Free. I’ve seen product branded cans in the coolers before, but hadn’t thought much of them. Branded gear of every shape and size can be found at most consumer companies.
But, today, those Bing cans are blog buzz (Oh, God, safe us!). Heather pops the top on Bing soda, which turns out to be sparkling water:
Microsoft went to all that effort to be able to develop custom cans to market their own search engine to their employees? They shelled out a ton of marketing cash to get a company to offer us custom cans? Here’s the catch kids, and really it’s a question: where else have you seen Talking Rain in a can? Oh, really? Nowhere? I wonder why that is. Could it be that Microsoft is a major customer and the Washington-based company puts it in cans so it fits in our refrigerators? They do it so they can make more money. Hmmm. Now the Bing logo doesn’t seem like a big deal, does it? They make the cans for us anyway. Not quite the marketing conspiracy it appears to be. (Anyone have cans for other MS products? Sadly for the cost centers: no cans for you!)…
In breaking Microsoft news: we have both yellow and white legal pads in the supply room.
Oh, what a wicked web we weave, as bloggers fight for those pageviews. The story might have been interesting, if it were correct. Of course, I assume that Heather isn’t spinning some tale here. Is she?
Photo Credit: Jason Walsh