Do you think that digital media offers any difference to the advertiser? How has this evolved in the last years?

What we have learned is that we can not understand digital marketing in an isolated way if we don’t include it inside a new life style of the users, in new socio-cultural and economic contexts and within changing consumption habits where the Internet represents an essential part to satisfy what the users demand from their environment. Communication, information search, entertainment or shopping, among other activities, have completely changed since the irruption of the online environment, and in many cases, new opportunities to expand the previous offer of services have been born. Because of all this, digital marketing offers the advertisers the opportunity of reaching their audience in their own environments, in an interactive way, with a closer language, fitted to the new habits, and linking their trade marks to a tool that each day satisfies much more than their vital needs.

In the Internet, we have grown from reduced penetration market share of concrete targets to big coverage of wide profiles, including youngsters, adults, working people, men and women, domestic users and enterprises, etc. Besides this quantitative change in the media audience, which in many cases overcomes other media like magazines and in certain cases the audio visual media, there also has been a qualitative change.

Digital publicity is looking for more effectiveness, a closer approach to the public with respect and confidentiality guarantees, with more creativity, with more interactivity between the trade mark and the user, and over all, with top personalization and profitability from the publicity investment.

Internet also offers the capacity to reach the user in more consumption moments in their every day activities, in ideal situations to reach them with an offer of services or their trade marks. Contrary to television, even though it has been demonstrated that the Internet is present among the users at the same moments as prime time, we have the special feature to enter for example in the daily moments of meal planning, entertainment, information search or communication. This is why, Coca Cola or McDonalds are capable of reaching through the MSN Messenger millions of users at lunch time, something impossible for other media. Therefore the sector considers it as very positive and has moved from reduced investments in digital publicity in global campaigns to be a significative part, although still small in numbers, but very known for being a decided decision in many of the big advertisers.

What makes MSN’s offer stand out among those of your competitors? Please tell us about MSN’s offer.

In the first place, our capacity for innovation and quality product development, leading in the respective markets. Microsoft, the biggest software company in the world throughout the net, brings experience, leadership, etc... to our online services. With this support, we have created a network of services with more than 465 million users throughout the world, services like MSN Messenger with more than 205 million people connected, with a market share in Spain of 98% and more than 8 million users, or nearly 230 million active accounts open of MSN Hotmail in more than 42 markets. This is complemented by our success in the blog category, with a service like MSN Spaces which in less than one year has received 40 million spaces, or the new search engine, whose additional functionalities will change the concept of information search in the web. In the portals category, MSN reaches more than 72% of the Internet population according to Nielsen/NetRatings, and the use times of its services along the month multiply by 3 and 4 the competitions’. Even more significant: 25% of the time spent by Spanish people in the Internet is dedicated to search among the different MSN services. This is the last concept to underline, because the capacity of MSN for integrating all its services in a single same experience designed to help the advertisers to reach their target audience in a more effective way and on more occasions, aided also by a unique segmentation capability.

All this information, along with the development of new digital marketing formulas and more efficient services for advertisers, places us as a communication and marketing platform, efficient, close to the user, and with capabilities to generate creative marketing proposals very attractive to both advertisers and consumers. Besides this, thanks to our responsible digital marketing, we have assumed even more strict compromises with the users and an absence of intrusive elements, to offer an even more satisfactory online experience.

But we do not stop here: we are immersed in a process of launching our Windows Live strategy, a new way to understand online services and users’ needs, starting from which we will place new products in the market for the consumers and for the advertisers, which according to initial results is being welcomed greatly. Research carried out in 10 different markets shows very positive feedback from the users with respect to our publicity policy, and it shows they are open to receiving information about trade marks and products in this new online experience, and demonstrates that good publicity along with good products can be effective.

In digital marketing, there seems to be great importance given to the content with which an ad appears. What do you think about contextual marketing today? How do you see this evolving?

This complements the publicity offer of Internet for advertisers and facilitates access to their target audience in a direct and easy way via information about their company in their respective sites or special webs. It is a
response to the information search or a way to bring, just with a click, millions of users to an entry gate to the company services. Its evolution in the next years will be spectacular, especially in the small firm segment, along with the consolidation among the big advertisers, of course
.

Do you think that digital marketing is appropriate for any type of company and/or audience?

To answer this question, only one data is necessary. According to the IAB report on publicity investment in 2005, 73% of the traditional investors had already invested in the Internet. This highlights the spectacular arrival of sectors with key publicity budgets, although not known before to the digital media. Just like television offers solutions for very concrete needs inside a campaign, Internet is an appropriate media to also accomplish certain objectives. Thanks to the growing penetration of Internet, companies that invest in traditional publicity such as television, radio or print media, can carry out digital marketing in a bigger or smaller dimension. In many instances, Internet audience fits the commercial profile desired: people between 18 and 45 years old, with a medium and medium-high socio-economic profile, open to new proposals, interested by their environments, and who continuously communicate and search information, etc.

We have far passed the time in which only technology enterprises invested and now he big advertisers of key sectors – automotive, financial, entertainment, beverage and food, big consumption – each day dedicate a larger percentage of their budgets to this media. Internet is a tool that can help accomplish the objectives of trade mark recognition, demand or lead creation, client loyalty, shopping process conclusion, etc. And all this can be interesting to any advertiser who’s chosen objective fits with the audience of the different online sectors.

Competing with a company such as Google – with outstanding results worldwide – must be complicated. How do you see this in the Spanish market?

Our mission is not to compete against other companies, but to give the best online services offer for the users. There are companies that are doing a good job in their respective segments, but we move for our 465 million users worldwide, and millions more that will join in the next months: an unprecedented social community. From Microsoft we strongly believe in the net services and this means to put at their service an important part of our technological and financial resources.

Our biggest asset is to have the capacity to work on areas like services to improve productivity of the enterprises, mobile devices, operating systems, entertainment through the Xbox or Windows Media Center, etc. Therefore, our movement in the Internet carries behind it a whole firm project that brings together the needs of millions of people throughout the world, in any activity.

This is our biggest strength, and Windows Live will benefit from the joint result all this work will imply. We assume constant challenges and we believe that we have the strength to maintain leadership in Internet. Spain is an example of our work capacity. Starting from a low penetration due to the presence of other portals more consolidated, in less than seven years we have achieved the leadership as a service portal, with more than 12 million clients of msn.es, MSN Messenger, MSN Hotmail, MSN Search, etc. Our mission, therefore, is to continue doing things right to keep their trust. .