Microsoft’s new Outlook commercial not only touts the benefits of using Microsoft’s premiere personal information manager, it also highlights the company’s support of marriage equality.
In the first commercial of its Outlook campaign Microsoft told its users to “get going”. In the second, it encouraged users to automate their inboxes and “get sweep”. Now, in the campaign’s third commercial, Microsoft wants its users to “get up to date”.
The commercial begins with the deliveryman who becomes a stuntman from the first commercial being congratulated for “updating” his job, then cuts to two women being married in front of what looks like a court house. Although the commercial doesn’t beleaguer the point, Microsoft is clearly sending a strong public message that it supports equal rights for all couples.
Although the commercial is new, Microsoft’s position on marriage equality is not. In June 2012, Microsoft, along with a number of other companies and cities, filed an amicus brief in the US Ninth District Court of Appeals opposing the third portion of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. Stating in part that the act “… forces us to discriminate against a class of our lawfully-married employees, upon whose welfare and morale our own success in part depends.”
