Aug 16, 2014; Arlington, TX, USA; Dallas Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray (29) uses a Microsoft surface tablet during the game against the Baltimore Ravens at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports
The $400 million deal between Microsoft and the National Football League started off swimmingly for the software giant. The company’s contract was only nine months old last February when the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl, giving the Redmond, Washington-based corporation a viable spokesman in Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson.
Three months later, the NFL arranged for Microsoft’s finally profitable Surface tablet to be the exclusive computer used on NFL sidelines, as well as an agreement that would enhance the viewing experience on Microsoft’s long-awaited XBOX One. Things were looking up for Microsoft, and its partnership for the NFL was starting to look like a steal of a contract.
But then the season started.
The trouble began back in May, when Microsoft marked its exclusive sideline deal by releasing this terribly boring commercial featuring the equally boring Wilson, unenthusiastically endorsing the company’s signature product:
Things got worse in September, when it was announced that Microsoft’s rival, Sony, sold nearly twice as many PlayStation 4 consoles as Microsoft did XBox One consoles since late 2013. But the company’s worst public relations fiasco unraveled in front of a national audience, when NFL announcers started referring to the Surface tablets on the sidelines as “iPads,” giving free advertisement to Microsoft’s main tablet rival.
The iPad fiasco is particularly noteworthy, considering Bose (the league’s official headphone provider) experienced a similar problem this year, when players began wearing rival Beats headphones during televised warm-ups. The difference between the Microsoft and Bose situation, however, is that players simply weren’t using Bose’s product, whereas Microsoft’s product, with the product’s name clearly emblazoned on the tablet’s teal shell, was being utilized under a $400 million agreement behind the name of their chief competitor. It was a low marketing point for a company with plenty of commercial failures (Bill Gates + Jerry Seinfeld, to name one particularly embarrassing moment), but things would only get worse as the season progressed.
By the end of October, the Seahawks were 3-3, and there were rumblings that Seattle’s biggest heroes would have to be broken up to salvage a volatile locker room dynamic. The team cut explosive threat Percy Harvin and threatened to cut ties with its powerhouse running back Marshawn Lynch at the end of the season. There were rumors that the locker room was divided on whether Microsoft’s main spokesperson, Wilson, was black enough; and that terribly boring commercial Microsoft released of Wilson in a white barber shop was being examined on sports talk radio and Twitter as exhibit A.
All of a sudden, Microsoft was being mentioned in the country’s national race discussion after two months of marketing problems in the world’s most profitable professional sports league, marking possibly the worst six-month stretch any NFL corporate partner has ever seen.
But things began to turn around thanks to some patience, some coaching, and a whole lot of luck. The NFL began instructing its announcers to avoid using the term “iPad” when referring to the Surface tablet, eliminating the free advertising Apple was getting in September. XBox One sales started creeping up in 2014’s final quarter, hinting at a strong 2015 and 2016 for Microsoft’s game console.
But most importantly for the Seattle area tech giant, the Seahawks started winning again.
The controversy around Wilson’s race suddenly disappeared around the same time he lead his team to six straight wins to end the season as division champions and the number one seed in the NFC playoffs. To add to the Seahawk’s and Microsoft’s late season surge, Wilson mounted one of the greatest comebacks in the sport’s history last Sunday with a 28-22 overtime victory over Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. On February 1st, Wilson and the Seahawks will return to the biggest televised stage in the country, the Super Bowl, one year after the Seahawks and Microsoft began their potentially lucrative relationship.
It would be difficult to find a marketing division happier for the Seahawks success than Microsoft’s. The company is now one of less than a handful of large corporate sponsors with a spokesperson playing in the big game (Uggs, Duracell, Beats), an invaluable commodity that will resurface (tablet pun intended) in jostling for the country’s attention during the lauded Super Bowl commercial breaks.
A second straight Super Bowl win just might make Microsoft’s signature spokesperson the league’s biggest star, another invaluable commodity that the company couldn’t have foreseen last February.
And that boring commercial released back in May?
It’s been replaced with another one that received heavy airplay during the playoffs; and it’s far better:
