Grassroots that is. But before we dive into strategy number 1, let’s set-up the context for this new article series. I think The Joker summed it up best in 1989’s Batman: “This town needs and enema!” Translating that over to the UMPC, I would say that the platform’s marketing needs an overhaul. Desperately.

Over the next week or two, we’ll explore some of the things that Microsoft and partners can do to get the UMPC marketing machine back on track. After a stellar viral campaign that brought on an Origami frenzy, thinks have been less than quiet. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen such a hyped announcement followed by virtually nothing. Complete and utter silence. And worse… but we’ll talk about all of that in good time. For now, onto overhaul strategy #1…

UMPC Marketing Overhaul Strategy #1: Move from a viral marketing mentality to a grassroots marketing paradigm.

I’ll be first to admit that I thought the lead-up to Origami/UMPC was pretty good (though it got away from even Microsoft in those final hours). It got buzz, attention, press and a heck of alot of sites popping up to support and champion it (it had more dedicated URLs to its name than I’ve actually seen pop-up to cover any product, ever). But something happened after the viral campaign. Nothing happened. Microsoft went dark. People were getting their information from FCC filings. And the extent of Microsoft’s marketing efforts was some shaky-cam footage (from a cellphone!) of the UMPC in action during an interview between Otto Burkes and a Washington reporter. Lameness.

Here’s what MS missed. They failed to transition from viral marketing to grassroots marketing (which would then ultimately lead to a bit of mass marketing in due time). MS (and the partners) have a tremendous amount of entusiastic champions in the online community — from PDA-fans to laptop-fans to tablet-fans to fans-of-any-gadget-in-general. Look at the technocrati blog post spikes for UMPC in the week following its launch. That was a wave of grassroots momentum that Microsoft should have ridden. But they chose not to.

Yes, it is easy for me to say that they didn’t take advantage of their opportunity. So, what could they have done. Well, I’m not going to share my full 23-page PowerPoint plan, but here are a few examples of what should have been done in the days and weeks immediately following the announcement:

MS could have sent out a “Introducing Origami” package to all relevant community outlets. This would not have been a press kit perse, but would have included an FAQ, collateral, road-map and hopefully some other creative and fun things (like a life-size UMPC made from cardboard that you could assemble to get a feel for size and dimensions of a typical spec unit).

MS could have created slick, compelling scenarios and detailed “case studies” that painted exciting pictures of what the UMPC could do and the innovative things it could be used for (such as an uber-remote or an in-car entertainment/information portal). The couple of sub-par marketing videos of people playing solitaire or Halo and shopping didn’t cut it.

And speaking about videos, why not interview real people who were planning to buy a UMPC when they came out? How about a 3 minute interview with Sally Soccermom about why she’s excited to trade in her day planner for a UMPC? Or another interview with Carl Collegestudent about how this will help him with finals and help him organize the next big frat bash. Post them to the YouTube and let the community have at it.

Give Paris Hilton a UMPC. Ok, that’s not a grassroots tactic, but come on, you gotta do it. Send that Lohan woman one while your at it.

I don’t want to get into too many tactics. There are a million. The point is that there were none. Why? These are the things that the grassroots community could run with, have fun with and create a dialogue around in that precious marketing time between announcement and mainstream availability. Grassroots marketing just wasn’t an option for UMPC, it was a neccessity.

But all is not lost. Microsoft can recover. But they need to move fast. I’m here to help. The community is here to help. Those example tactics are all still valid now, they just won’t provide as much oomph. And there are a million other things to do (though you’ll need to prioritize). I’ll brainstorm with you.

I’ll stop with this last question/comment. The Associated Press got their hands on a UMPC and ran a negative review that ran in dozens of newspapers and online outlets over the weekend. Imagine if the UMPC community had been given some grassroots tools to help counter that negative press with the promise of what is to come. I’m not saying that the UMPC community is always going to put a positive spin on everything (just look at Ultranauts as an example), I’m just saying that I would have liked to have had the 100 folks I know are likely most jazzed about my product ready to help balance any negativity coming from a review of a first-generation Microsoft machine. Wouldn’t that have helped?

I don’t know the answer to that question. I didn’t get the opportunity to try and answer it.

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