Microsoft Advertising Its Way to Top of Search

By  |  Monday, May 25, 2009 at 1:10 pm

Well, I’m not sure why it thinks it would work any different this time, but Microsoft at it again trying to advertise its way to better search marketshare with the search engine supposedly now known as Bing (previously known as Kumo). Altogether, about $80 to $100 million will be spent to promote the latest reboot, Advertising Age is reporting.

Microsoft will ask consumers to rethink what search is. Instead of directly going after its competitors, it will challenge consumers to think if search really does work as well as they thought.

If it does go as far as reports claim, it would be the largest ad campaign for any search product yet. You’d have to think that the saturation–ads will appear online, on TV and radio, and in the print–would at least cause a good portion of consumers to at least give the new search contender a look.

Consumers are generally happy with their searches. About two-thirds of all users are satisfied with search performance, although four in 10 searches require refinement to get what the user wants.

Bing’s (or Kumo, whatever) challenge if it is going to take on Google in this manner is to eliminate the need for refinement. So far from what we’re hearing it seems that it does seem to answer this to some extent, but it’s not a massive difference.

 
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3 Comments For This Post

  1. Tom B Says:

    Maybe they can bribe some red-headed chick to search for less dorky glasses….

    Seriously: don't these guys ever learn? Enterprise is their niche; no amount of advertising will remove the bad taste consumers are left with after actually USING MSFT products.

  2. NanoGeek Says:

    Bing?

    Someone please tell Microsoft that goofy names are not the secret to success.

  3. Aaron Pressman Says:

    It can’t be worse than the last time they ran a massive TV campaign for their search engine with ads so generic, I’m quite sure they did more to bolster Google than help Microsoft. I blogged about it back in the day at http://gravitationalpull.net/wp/?p=40 (the prediction) and later http://gravitationalpull.net/wp/?p=41 (the result)

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