Not only have people been slow to sign up to MSN's service, which was launched in Europe in 1995 shortly after its US debut, but advertisers have been slow to place ads on MSN sites.

To catch up with local competition and get a leg-up with both viewers and advertisers, MSN said that it will sponsor the Webcast of this year's Eurovision Song Contest and launch MSN's first pan-European advertising campaign.

The move is an attempt to draw more people to the site and use those numbers to attract more high-profile advertisers. "We haven't really been perceived as a prime advertising space," says Sharon Baylay, marketing director for MSN in Europe. "With this sponsorship and the numbers it should draw, we hope to show advertisers our breadth and depth across Europe."

Until now, MSN's advertising in Europe has been split up country by country, with different campaigns running in individual markets. This has allowed MSN more freedom to compete with local Internet services, but robbed the service of a pan-European pitch to potential advertisers on MSN sites.

MSN has used its underdog status as an opportunity to present itself to consumers as a renegade player in the European market. "Europe is less skeptical than the US about certain companies, which gives people like Microsoft an opportunity to reinvent themselves here to a certain degree," says Jordana de Mello, European marketing director of Agency.com, a unit of Omnicom Group Inc.

MSN's local ads have been jazzier than MSN's campaigns in the US, which talk about how consumers can use MSN in their everyday lives. For instance, the latest wave in MSN's cheeky consumer campaign in the UK shows irreverent images of pandas taking Viagra, dogs finding lamp posts in the middle of the desert and attractive women wearing tight shirts that read, "I love ugly men." All the ads are followed by the tagline, "Life's Great With MSN."

These localised ads have brought MSN more consumer attention in recent months. Since the UK campaign was launched last autumn, MSN's viewership numbers have increased roughly 50% to about one million viewers a day in the UK.

Still, MSN's portal remains a lesser player on the European Internet scene. "They aren't really on anyone's radar screen," says Agency.com's de Mello, "and many strategists feel they'll have a hard time, along with America Online, beating out local players in Europe."

In February MSN extended its existing US online advertising agreement with Unilever to Europe, but other major advertisers have been slow to follow suit. Baylay says that the Eurovision sponsorship will present MSN as a European network and should drive more advertising revenue, which will in turn give MSN more firepower to promote itself to consumers across Europe.

MSN has 17 sites in as many countries in Europe and boasts 25 million visitors a day. The Eurovision Song Contest, which last year drew 236 million television viewers in Europe, should draw more than three million people to MSN sites, says Baylay.

The campaign to advertisers uses these numbers to back up its pitch: "The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is on MSN. Could it be you?" The ads will run in advertising trade media in early May and continue for roughly three months past the May 13 contest.

The consumer ads to accompany the contest promotion use the MSN butterfly, which was created as part of the $41 million (43.6 millon euros) campaign MSN ran in the US to promote its services there. The ads show the butterfly on music scales and in a spotlight, urging viewers to "chat on MSN," "hear it on MSN" and "see it on MSN," referring to the contest.

The Eurovision Song Contest tends to draw snickers from hip Europeans. Yet despite its unfashionable image, the contest draws viewers across Europe who tune in to see a local pop star make it big on the European scene. The competition's heyday was in 1973 when an unknown Swedish band, Abba, won the prize. Since then there have been no major players launched from the Eurovision show, but the yearly programme remains popular.

MSN is hoping to leverage that popularity and use the contest to break the record for the largest Webcast ever. MSN says it set the last record itself with a live Webcast of Paul McCartney playing in the Cavern Club in Liverpool, England, the Beatles' initial stomping ground. That show, which was aired December 14, drew three million people to the MSNnetwork. Whether a gathering of unknown singers can beat the Beatles' legend remains to be seen.

(The Wall Street Journal)