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Microsoft's Neil Thompson

The senior director for Northern Europe explains the thinking behind this year's Christmas marketing campaign

The build-up to Christmas is well underway, with high profile game launches littering the calendar between now and December - so what better time to kick off this year's Holiday marketing campaign?

That's exactly what Microsoft is doing from tomorrow, in a follow-up to last year's 'open head' theme, and here the company's senior director for Northern Europe, Neil Thompson, explains what it's all about.

GamesIndustry.biz Last year's campaign - the 'open head' theme - certainly made its mark, so what's lined up for this year?
Neil Thompson

Well, it's similar in certain ways in that we have extensive above-the-line campaigns that have already kicked off, to be honest, with a lot of our third-party publishing partners. You might have seen a lot of TV work we've already done around some great titles - The Beatles: Rock Band, and so on.

But from October 2 we're launching our own TV work explaining to consumers the broader entertainment offerings we have on Xbox 360, which is going to centre on our music offerings, movie offerings - and then obviously the unique TV experience we've got in connection with Sky, and the Sky service we're bringing to Live.

All of that is going to round out for us the broader entertainment platform that the 360 is, and we're working on some fantastic software titles from our end, such as Lips and Forza. Plus we've done a lot of work in the last few weeks, working with Activision on Modern Warfare 2, and other great titles that are coming out for gamers.

So really it's an extension of what we were doing last year, with perhaps a little bit more emphasis around the broader entertainment offering, as well as all the great games that will be available.

GamesIndustry.biz You'll be aware that Sony has recently been focusing on the non-gaming aspects for its recent PlayStation 3 marketing - is this a response to that campaign, or something you've been working on prior to that?
Neil Thompson

In some ways I wish we were that agile [smiles]. No, we're just focusing on what we think are our core strengths. We think gaming is a core strength of ours, we think the breadth of our entertainment offering is a real core strength. And Live, in many ways, is just our unique value proposition.

We're very focused on what we think we're offering to consumers, rather than what anybody else thinks they're offering them.

GamesIndustry.biz The Sky functionality isn't live yet, so will the marketing creative change over time as and when new functionality is added?
Neil Thompson

It depends what you mean by creative. The TV work will be what it is when you see it, but obviously in terms of a lot of the content that we'll post online or the digital marketing we'll do - that will evolve as new elements come into that service.

When the Sky service does come live people will certainly get to see what an extensive service that is.