Microsoft's ad budget: $945MM [update 2]
Nintendo's announcement that they'll spend $200 million to market the Wii reminded us that we've been sitting on this clipping from Advertising Age (from one of the October editions of the magazine). Ad Age tells us that Microsoft's new Xbox marketing guy (ranked 22nd in Ad Age's list of power marketers based on his budget) has $945 million to spend advertising Microsoft's entertainment products.
[Update 2: A reputable commentor wrote in to correct some aspects of the Ad Age clipping: "Advertising Age is a fine publication, but they posted Microsoft's advertising spend, as reported by 3rd parties. This is not how much the Electronic Devices Division spends. The post #17 is correct. Chris Stephenson is in charge of zune marketing."]
While that's a whole lotta lucre, ain't no telling exactly how the pie will be divided between all the attention-starved products in Microsoft's portfolio. Besides the Xbox 360 console itself, plenty of other MS entertainment products compete for a share of that bankroll: first party games (Halo 3), Games for Windows, Casual Games, peripherals, services (Xbox Live), Zune, etc. Whether the total figure allocated to the Xbox 360 is more or less than Nintendo's $200 million marketing committment is the billion-dollar question.
Anybody got data on how much Sony'll be spending on the PlayStation 3 and Blu-Ray launch? Given the importance of these products to the company's future, chances are they're shoveling Benjamins into that famed Sony marketing engine by the dumptruck fulls.
