Microsoft picks marketing boss for new consumer unit

Microsoft has appointed Mike Fischer as chief marketing officer for the company’s new Consumer and Online UK division.

The newly created division was launched at the start of the year, following the appointment of former Project Kangaroo chief executive Ashley Highfield as managing director and vice-president of Consumer and Online UK.

In his new role, Fischer will lead a dedicated team responsible for the consumer marketing of Microsoft products, brands and services in the areas of PC, web and mobile.

The role will include looking after brands such as Windows, Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Mobile. He will report to Highfield.

Fischer was previously general manager of Microsoft’s XBox marketing, and led both global and US-based marketing teams in the entertainment and devices division of Microsoft for five years. Before that he was vice-president of marketing at Sega.

Highfield says: “Fischer has great experience from his work at XBox and will help to raise the profile of our Consumer and Online offerings.”

Over the coming months, Microsoft is expected to unveil a series of integrated ads focusing on its Consumer and Online portfolio.

The ads will lead on from last year’s integrated “I’m a PC” campaign, created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky.

Highfield says: “Everything needs to be really simple in life, so we want to play on that for our new ad campaign. The next phase of ads will promote the benefits of Microsoft’s consumer offerings, showing they are easy, fun and simple to use.”

Microsoft has made other senior appointments recently. It named Stuart Anderson as marketing communications manager for mapping and local, EMEA, with a remit to define and implement a marketing strategy to acquire new customers for Multimap.com. It also appointed former Motorola marketer Jeremy Dale as EMEA vice-president of retail sales and marketing in the entertainment and devices division.