Microsoft's Forefront Ad Campaign

The introduction of Microsoft's Forefront security solutions is already backed up by a huge ad campaign that can be seen on the majority of tech-news portals. The campaign is however lacking a consistent vision to communicate the benefits and main differentiation points -- if any -- of the product, and is barely informing that it exists in a not so creative way :

There's nothing in Forefront that really makes it notably better or worse than any other solutions that are already in the marketplace. However, the Microsoft name may be sufficient for it to steal market share, and a better integration with other Microsoft solutions…is likely to be a bit of a differentiator,” said Quin. Faced with increasing competition from Microsoft, Symantec Corp. questioned Microsoft's ability to effectively protect enterprise customers.

Trying to be witty too much while fighting ninjas and aliens often results in your ad campaign "clowning" in the eyes of a prospective customer. Security is indeed a cosmic phenomenon for Microsoft, an unexplained pseudo-randomly generated event that's continuing to be researched and analyzed for generations to come. Can they achieve desirable results? Will penetration pricing help? And will the ad agency that got commisioned with the ad campaign come up with a bit of a more creative psychological imagination the next time?

A pure example of an acquisition-to-solution strategy compared to AOLs licensing of a reputable AV vendor's technology, in order for them to enter the market segment as well.