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Microsoft Premieres Their Bing Television Commercial
As part of the company’s $100 marketing push, Microsoft has started showing
Bing search engine commercials on television in the US. The video is likely to
appear in other countries as Bing’s localization effort progresses, but if
you’re yet to see it…
At just over 1 minute, the commercial is very much style over substance. It’s
flashy, fast, fashionable and warns that people aren’t searching - they’re
bailing. Apparently, we’re all “lost in the links”. We don’t need queries and
keywords that just lead to further questions - we need a decision engine.
Of course, the advert doesn’t actually tell us anything. Why does the company
consider my previous searching experiences to be so flawed? What does Bing do?
Why should use it? However, this air of mystery will tempt many people to trying
Bing and that’s what Microsoft needs. Feedback about the search engine (sorry,
decision engine) has been largely positive, but the project will only succeed if
the company can persuade people to switch from Google and Yahoo.
Interestingly, there is just the briefest mention of Microsoft itself; their
logo appears in the bottom-right corner during the last two seconds of the
advert. Blink and you’ll miss it.
If you had not already used Bing would this commercial encourage you to do so?
Has the company purposely downplaying the Microsoft brand? Does television
advertising work for web sites?
