In April 2009, Kristena Louie, program manager for Microsoft Office, must develop a marketing strategy to better reach and engage the college student market. In contrast to Facebook and Google, which excite and engage students successfully, Microsoft is regarded as lacking innovation, aging, and playing a limited role in students’ lives (p.2, Case A). To understand and overcome such negative perceptions, Louie hires a team of expert to study the mindset and technology preferences of students. With the goal of successfully competing in the college students market, Louie must improve Microsoft’s value proposition through establishing short and long-term milestones with the insights of the market research.
In the short run, Microsoft should improve its advertisement strategy and cater to the needs of college students by forming partnerships with universities and campus clubs, re-positioning itself toward the innovative spectrum (Ex. A). Besides, an academic search engine specifically tailored for college students should be constructed (Ex. B). This service distinguishes itself with the specificity of materials it offers. Furthermore, Microsoft should incorporate users’ feedback into its design and layout while educating users about the novel features. In the long run, we should supplement Hotmail with social and productivity features that resemble Gchat and Google Drive. Lastly, we recommend the development of a social network, as well as a mobile app in order to appeal to the tastes of students and facilitate the accessibility of its products.
Microsoft’s past efforts in advertisements were ineffective in advocating an innovative, technological-based, and trouble-free image. In fact, many students do not know Microsoft advertises at all on campus (Ex. 3); therefore, an improved advertising strategy is a matter of utmost urgency. Besides, statistics have indicated that over 60 percent of the total amount of time students spend on online schoolwork is on browsing for academic information, alerting us to the need for developing a search engine that is tailor-made for scholarly purposes (Ex. 2). It has also come to our attention that quite a number of users have complained that the new features lack user-friendliness, and the designs were described as being counterintuitive and unnecessarily complex (Ex. 4). Moreover, many students voice their concerns regarding the narrowed values that Microsoft can offer (Ex. 3_A). Integrating Hotmail with the productivity and social functions would diversify the roles Microsoft plays in students’ lives, rebuild students’ confidence in Microsoft, and highlight the brand’s strength in users’ mind (Ex. 3_B). Furthermore, social activities have substituted academic work in occupying an enormous portion of college students’ lives (Ex. 1, 2). To guarantee students’ loyalty and involvement, it is essential for Microsoft to evaluate its social aspects.
We speculate that our well-established reputation is capable of attracting a sufficient number of top-notch universities to form official partnerships with us. Moreover, we assume we have the ability to develop a search engine that shares the same competitiveness as Google. However, the addition of a social network and a mobile app may be a waste of capital, as our attempts to compete with other dominators are potentially in vain. We also run the risk of not only failing to rebuild our stature as an innovative firm but also damaging the old and conservative image.
At the end of August, Louie should form partnerships with campus clubs, coordinating advertising campaigns and workshops on new features during the fall semester. Furthermore, the user insights team should be formed by the end of next month, implementing changes weekly. In addition, Louie should cooperate with the corporate development team, screening potential partnerships or acquisitions on building the search engine by the end of this year. Finally, Louie should initiate the social network development and launch the beta by the end of 2010.
Exhibit A Ideal reposition of Microsoft in students’ mind

Exhibit B Beta of the academic search engine