Microsoft spices up the IT image
Decrease Increase - — Submit comment: — SHE doesn't have any IT qualifications - in fact she's a university drop-out - but that hasn't stopped software giant Microsoft hiring former Miss Australia Erin McNaught to sex up the computer industry's geeky image.
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's marketing machinery keeps drawing scrutiny rather than goodwill — its Search Champs conference program was challenged in 2006 as payola-for-bloggers — so the company is again reaching outside product features to shape perception. This time the target isn't bloggers but the industry's own recruiting problem: hiring former Miss Australia Erin McNaught, a university drop-out with no IT qualifications, explicitly to soften the 'geek' stereotype that the article says clings to computer careers.
The move lands amid earlier evidence that brand image matters to tech employment — CNET reported in 2005 on job seekers ruling out employers by their choice of hardware — making Microsoft's bet that a celebrity face can widen the applicant pool a testable one.
First-order effects
- Erin McNaught becomes a public face of Microsoft's effort to rebrand IT careers, giving the company a media-friendly spokesperson whose lack of technical credentials is itself part of the pitch that computing jobs aren't only for geeks.
Second-order effects
- Rival tech employers competing for the same shallow graduate pipeline face pressure to match celebrity-driven employer branding, just as Microsoft's own marketing tactics were already under fire from skeptics over programs like Search Champs.
Third-order effects
- If image campaigns measurably broaden applicant pools, the industry's long-run answer to its talent shortage shifts from pure compensation toward lifestyle rebranding of computing careers — though whether celebrity ambassadors move enrollment numbers remains unproven.
The trend: Technology companies are increasingly treating the industry's geeky public image itself as a recruiting bottleneck worth spending brand budgets to fix.