Craig
Again I must insist that Advertising is not marketing. Some of the best marketing campaigns involve no advertising at all. Example: the English Monarchy. When's the last time you saw them putting ads about themselves in magazines? Yes, not everybody likes them but everybody knows who they are.
The hallmark of marketing is effort to convince the market of the value of the product. Placing an isolated ad or two is an amateur approach. MS is not amateur at marketing- you said it yourself.
Regards
JR
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1