Do you know Eliza Esquivel? You should, considering she is now the Senior Director of Brand Strategy and Naming for Office marketing at Microsoft.
Though her title may sound a bit outlandish at a corporate enterprise like Microsoft, Esquivel is the Wonder Woman of advertising, having nurtured brands like Oreo and Cadbury over a colorful career with several top advertising companies such as DDB, JWT and TBWA\ Chiat Day.
Microsoft now wants her to head the branding for products like Office 365, Outlook and Skype.
After shelling out $26 billion for LinkedIn, Microsoft is now at a cusp of making that relationship work – and Esquivel is just the person for the job. Proper branding is exactly the kind of thing they need to attract LinkedIn’s massive professional base into Microsoft’s fold.
Eliza Esquivel’s more recent accomplishments include being responsible for a $36 billion portfolio that included top global brands like Cadbury and Oreo. And anyone who has seen the kind of fan base that their advertising alone enjoys will realize that she is the right person to take Microsoft’s office products to a whole new level.
Office 365 has already surged past Google Apps and even Salesforce.com to become the Number One Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application in the world, and LinkedIn is part of their strategy to create an uncrossable moat around that business.
This is the future of the Windows maker. Now, with one of the most creative minds in advertising on board, maybe we should start calling them the Office maker!
