Microsoft Lines Up Gandalf And Bilbo For Windows Phone 8 Ad Campaign

Fans of J R R Tolkien’s novels ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ across the globe will be happy to see their favourite characters Gandalf and Bilbo in the latest advertising campaign from Microsoft, which will promote Windows Phone 8, the second generation of the Windows Phone mobile operating system.

The software company has sealed a partnership deal with Warner Bros to line up the two characters for the initiative, which will encompass digital, print and outdoor advertisements, I read this morning in the Marketing magazine. Warner Bros has given the company the thumbs-up to use the characters for adverts in the UK, US, France and Germany.

The campaign comes ahead of the release of ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’, the first of a three-part film adaptation of Tolkien’s novel ‘The Hobbit’, which will feature Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf and Martin Freeman as Bilbo. The film will hit UK theatres and cinemas on 13 December.

The campaign adds to Microsoft’s recent TV advertising initiative promoting Windows Phone 8 under ‘The smartphone reinvented around you’ theme, which shows comedian James Corden and TV presenter Holly Willoughby enjoying the various features of the Windows Phone gadgets. Microsoft is now using the ‘we are not for everyone, we are for the individual’ concept in its latest advertising push to accentuate on the platform’s personalisation options.

The platform’s interface organises content such as news, games, email and Facebook updates into a grid of tales, which refresh independently from one another.