Windows Live Earth

Saturday's Live Earth event brought 150 artists together for concerts on seven continents, even Antarctica. I wasn't lucky enough to live in or be able to travel to one of the cities with a major Live Earth concert. But I watched some of the performances, flipping between telecasts on Bravo and CNBC. The performances are also available online, at a specially branded MSN Web site.

MSN is Live Earth's exclusive online partner, and it has been making 07-07-07 preparations for months by offering early content and information. Videos of performances are still available online today, from most concert venues.

The event is a huge opportunity for Microsoft, although it puts forth the wrong brand. The MSN Live Earth Web site showcases to other potential customers Microsoft's advertising, branding, marketing and technology capabilities. The package is pretty slick. On the day of the launch, the MSN Live Earth site streamed performances live. The archive offers all the performances, which can be selected by location, artist and song. Microsoft puts short ads before performances, including Zune.

Like MSN Soapbox, videos are platform independent. I easily watched the same videos on a Vista PC with Internet Explorer 7 as on Mac OS X Tiger with Safari 3 beta. I observed a quality difference, though. Video clarity and audio fidelity was better to my eyes and ears on the Vista PC than the Mac. I presume, but don't know, that Microsoft offers Windows Media Video streams to Internet Explorer and Flash Video to other browsers. I can't say whether perceived differences have to do with technology or encoding.

The major problem I see for Microsoft is branding conflict. Microsoft's major services push is Windows Live, but the Live Earth site puts forth MSN's brand, which makes sense for potential advertisers but much less so for Web services used by consumers. Analyst surveys show that teens and younger adults—same demographic I presume Live Earth targets—are most likely the segment to use Web services like Windows Live.

That said, what would Microsoft do for branding, Windows Live Live Earth? Live Live would be some big brand confusion, and there is another. Can you say Google Earth? Microsoft's mapping service is Live Search Maps, and Windows Live association with Google Earth would just create more unnecessary brand confusion.

The MSN Live Earth Web site puts Zune out there, which can only help the brand. Maybe Apple knows its demographics, too. From the number of iPhone commercials I saw during Bravo and CNBC Live Earth broadcasts on Saturday night, I would have thought Apple was a major sponsor of the event.

MSN branding was heavy during the broadcasts, such as promotion of the Web site for watching concert and environmental videos. Another benefit: Goodwill can go a long way to building goodwill. While Microsoft engaged Live Earth as a commercial partner, the MSN association is about environmental protection and education. That's good goodwill PR for the MSN brand.