HTC kicks off new Windows Phone advertising campaign in the UK

By Tom Warren, on 17th Oct 11 7:30 pm with 29 Comments

HTC kicked off a new advertising campaign on Monday with commercials on national TV for its Radar Windows Phone device.

The first commercial features Annika Lischke, an artist based in Germany. Lischke is seen using the Radar to connect with her friends on the people hub who inspire her to create works of art. She creates a street art collection in Berlin and uses the Radar camera to snap and share a picture on Facebook. The commercial features a clear look at Windows Phone and is backed by HTC’s powerful branding alongside a green Windows Phone logo.

The TV spot follows a push from Microsoft to focus on its cross platform play with Windows Phone and Xbox. Microsoft kicked off the first of a number of TV commercials on Sunday that feature the tagline “it’s a great time to be a family.” The first adverts aired during NBC’s pre-game of Sunday Night Football. Microsoft is expected to air the commercials across the world in the coming weeks as the company prepares for a big advertising push ahead of the holiday season.

Microsoft is reportedly donating £28 million ($44 million) to Nokia and Samsung’s advertising campaigns, ahead of device launches in the coming weeks. Nokia is believed to be planning a campaign that will focus on the social media aspects of Windows Phone alongside apps and games. Leaked images of Nokia’s first Windows Phone adverts appear to confirm this. Samsung’s advertising will follow the release of the Omnia W in Europe. The Korean firm will focus on its “multimedia something for everyone” unique selling point for its Windows Phone devices. Microsoft refuses to comment on its funding for Windows Phone marketing. The software giant’s close relationship with Nokia means the company will pay Nokia over $1 billion to promote and develop Windows Phone devices.

Check out WinRumors review of the HTC Radar and view HTC’s new advert below.

Sorry for video quality

  • Anonymous

    It’s certainly better than those awful “great to be a family” ads Microsoft is running…

  • Anonymous

    Really??
    I already really like Windows Phone but this ad doesn’t make me want to buy it! So I dunno if it will do for “normal” people…

    • http://twitter.com/majankajan majankajan

      I updated my phone to 7.5 and it is now useless, keyboard disappears all the time, the battery life is crap now ?!?!?!, and it freezes all the time.I have had most of the bugsherehttp://wmpoweruser.com/ton… going back to Android where I should have stayed after my contract is up, Im trying to see If I can get out of it as basically the phone they have given me is “not fit for purpose”Microsoft needs to sort this crap out…………………………………

    • Anonymous

      Really sorry for you. I’m using Mango since the first beta and I never had these issues. So dunno what’s happening with some Mango users.
      I had Android before and it was much more buggy (in my opinion).

    • http://twitter.com/casandrasdream casandrasdream

      Sp

    • Anonymous

      he’s talking about the ad, not the actual phone/os!

    • Anonymous

      BEWARE: “majankajan” a.k.a “casandrasdream” is known troll on DISQUS, I advise moderators to take a notice!

  • http://twitter.com/casandrasdream casandrasdream

    wd

    • Will Fisher

      You’re the kind of guy that ruins a persons day…dick.

    • Guest

      fo

  • http://twitter.com/majankajan majankajan

    dsa

    • Anonymous

      Go back to your Droid cheese daily, you are a fandroid troll all the Internet knows it by now!

  • http://twitter.com/chrisleadley Chris Leadley

    Finally, a half decent attempt at a good advert for a windows phone, maybe Microsoft is going to be relying on their partners to do the bulk of the adverts for the phones – I think the Nokia and Samsung offerings will potentially be good as well

  • http://twitter.com/tw33tcOurtn3y c0urtn3y

    MS really needs to just get those user ads from youtube on TV asap. These ads are boring as hell and probably appeal more to the corporate image which is well and good but if they want to gain traction in the consumer market the ads need more energy.

  • gary

    these ads are good and well, but soon there will be quad core androids, they already have mass storage and super amoled screens, what do we have ??

    crap single core, crapier screens, no memory and lots of bugs………..

    I think Microsoft has given up on WP7 and is happy to spend its time getting money selling android patents……………….

    • Guest

      For a guy with nothing good to say about the OS, you sure spend a lot of time trolling about it.

    • http://twitter.com/PhilippMager Philipp Mager

      still wp7 will run much better/smoother on a single core 1 GHz then Android on a quad core  1.7 GHz :)

    • Anonymous

      what bugs? Please, enlighten the users that haven’t had a single bug in nearly a year… bugs?

    • gary
    • Niko

      Oh, you again…

    • Tuxplorer

      Android is fugly, pathetic, unproductive and completely unusable. Android runs SLOWER on a quad core processor than WP7 runs on a single core 800 MHz processor. Android is crappy and shitty OS with a pathetic design. WP7 is beautiful, elegant, super-fast, fluid, smooth and a joy to use.

    • gary

      say what you want, but people vote with their wallet and thats why WP7 < 2% market share…….

      and if a "crappy and shitty OS with a pathetic design" owns WP7……what does that tell you about WP7 ???

  • http://www.facebook.com/aerosmillie David Smillie

    very good advert. just saw it on E!. Microsoft take notice.

  • OMG55

    How about showing the message come up as a toast and tellme asking if you was the message read back to you or reply???? That would highlight a real feature. Or how about showing a message coming in from a family member that includes a picture and you simply select share and have the option to post via facebook, live, twitter, or all of them (again, that would be a real feature to highlight). Again, how about you receiving a message from someone you don’t want to talk too; Then you select the feature that allows you to set your chat status to appear offline to that person (that would be a needed feature, because sometimes, you just don’t to be bother by that individual). Does anyone have some film making equipment and experience so we can make a real commercial. If anyone is interested in trying our hand at it reply to this message so we can talk and come up with some ideas…..Hell we may even be able to pull a Brandon Foy and get hired for creative marketing. there are many more scenarios I can come up with for a commercial than these that would apeal to consumers. Like me saving documents, videos, music, photo albums to my sky drive and other accessing, editing, and even adding too that would be useful to consumers & Business.

  • Anonymous

    Not bad.  At least they showed her using the phone more then the Family Ads.  What’s with Microsoft NEVER showing Ads that focus more on the functionality than other crap?  Apple shows a lot of both, Android shows cool Ads with kick boxing babes.  Why are MS ads so uninspiring?

  • J. Davies

    Looks great. All that’s holding me back from getting one of these instead of an Apple is the screen resolution and the presence of the Dropbox app. I’m sure Dropbox will release something, but has Microsoft mentioned the possibility of increasing the screen res?

    • Tuxplorer

      SkyDrive is a million times better than Dropbox. Why would you want Dropbox instead of SkyDrive?

    • J. Davies

      1. I use it heavily on my iPad. Many good apps are integrated with Dropbox.

      2. I like it, and I’ve organised my life around it.

    • Anonymous

      There are already Dropbox apps in the marketplace, so that’s something you can cross off your list. The screen resolution isn’t as much of a problem as spec nerds will lead you to think.