Nokia may be preparing to kick off a monstrous advertising blitz alongside the launch of its first round of Windows Phones, UK-based Marketing Magazine reports. The advertising campaign, which will apparently kick off in October when Nokia finally begins pushing out Microsoft-powered smartphones, is reportedly valued at just under $130 million. The new global campaign will seemingly be a rebranding mission of sorts, and will reportedly run for six months. Nokia has a steep climb ahead as it attempts to slow its bleeding market share while simultaneously attempting to get customers on board with a fledgling Windows Phone operating system that has not been well received thus far. Despite our love of the platform here at BGR, Microsoft’s share of the U.S. smartphone market has dropped by 35% since Windows Phone first launched in November, and International sales have been lackluster so far according to reports. Looking past its slow start, however, some analysts believe Windows Phone will quickly become one of the most popular mobile operating systems in the world. Pyramid Research, for example, believes Nokia will help propel Windows Phone sales faster than even Android saw during its rapid ascent to the No. 1 spot. Pyramid expects global Windows Phone sales to top Android in 2013.

[Via Engadget]

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Toyota recently launched a publicized campaign that placed a special Scion-branded theme pack in the Cydia store for jailbroken iPhone users to enjoy. The move was seen as progressive considering Toyota’s decision to embrace the jailbreak community, but a new report reveals that the theme pack has since been pulled from Cydia. According to the report, Toyota’s advertising agency claims Toyota was contacted by Apple and asked to have the theme removed from Cydia. Toyota complied, of course, and had its agency contact the theme’s publisher to have it taken down immediately. Apple has been openly opposed to the jailbreak community in the past, and this latest move hardly comes as a surprise.

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Remember that $100 million Verizon Wireless spent to introduce the world to its first Android phone, the Motorola DROID? Bush league. The New York Post reports that Microsoft is preparing to drop a cool $500 million marketing Kinect, its upcoming motion-based gaming controller for the Xbox 360. Add to that another estimated $500 million the Redmond giant is expected to spend on Windows Phone 7 and you’ve got yourself an even $1 billion worth of Microsoft marketing madness. Windows Phone 7 and Kinect clearly represent Microsoft’s two biggest product launches ahead of this holiday season, and now it’s safe to assume we can all be expected to be reminded of that fact constantly. Blitz or no blitz, neither launch can come soon enough if you ask us.

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It’s been a while since rumblings of Kumo, Microsoft’s codename for its new searching engine offering, made the rounds. From the looks of things, that’s about to change… Big time. Redmond is said to be preparing to launch Kumo — with the final name “Bing” — alongside a massive $80 million advertising push that will aim to convince people search is broken and Microsoft has fixed it. It’s a tough sell, no question. Microsoft’s latest Laptop Hunters ad run has been quite the success of course, but there is a pretty massive difference here: Laptop Hunters addresses personal computers, where Microsoft is already the undisputed heavyweight champ with a shade under 90 percent of the market. Bing is a search engine and Microsoft’s search products currently combine to hold just over 8 percent of the market. Bing needs to build a user base, not keep one. So the task where advertising is concerned is a much different one, but the market could be ready for a true contender. According to Microsoft’s research where search is concerned, 42 percent of searches require refinement and 25 percent of clicks are the back button. As dominant as Google is, there still may be plenty of room for improvement in terms of efficiency.

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