IP Communications

While it’s not getting into the doctor business, Microsoft (News - Alert) Corp. says it has the cure to end all woes with sick Internet searches—its new Web site Bing.

 

That is the building block behind the company’s reported $80 million to $100 million ad campaign to support Bing’s launch. The effort will focus on the ideas that current search engines don’t work as well as consumers previously thought, TMC said.

 

The first Bing ad, slated to launch tonight, shows "search overload" syndrome — the state of confusion brought on by search results that don't answer a user's question. AP Technology Writer Jessica Mintz describes the commercial as “chaotic,” saying it begins with a series of bleeps and blips and a montage of Web-videos.

 

"While everyone was searching, there was bailing," a narrator says over news footage from the economic meltdown. "While everyone was lost in the links, there was collapsing."

 

The footage then cuts to upbeat rock music and shots of children happily using consumer electronics and adults making calculations, rehabilitating injuries and going places, Mintz writes.

 

"It's time to Bing," the commercial says.

 

The ad, handled by agency JWT, is breaking just days after Microsoft launched the new search engine. As TMC (News - Alert) reported, the site went live on June 1, two days before its slated release.

 

In addition, Microsoft also plans to roll out an online campaign, which will include a two-hour stretch in which every ad on The New York Times' Web site is for Bing, according to the AP. Already, a Facebook (News - Alert) page devoted to Bing has more than 22,000 "fans." On the page, fans have a running list using the word ‘Bing’ as a verb that Google became famous for. Here are a few examples:  ‘What the Bing”,” “Bing Bong, search is done,” and “Just Bing It.”

 

Microsoft touts Bing as a decision engine rather than a search engine, the AP says. In announcing the site last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (News - Alert) said Bing wants to help users receive the information they're searching for faster. For example, pop-up windows reportedly will open summarizing details on a Web site to save users from clicking. The site also organizes search results with navigation and search tools and offers different categories of results.

 

Bing, formerly known as Kumo, features a variety of services, including Bing Travel, Bing Cashback and Bing Maps for Enterprise, Computer World reports. The name is designed to conjure “the sound of found” as Bing helps people with complex tasks, Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online audience business group, told the New York Times.

 

Recent comScore numbers show Google increasing its share to 64.2 percent of searches in the U.S. in April, versus and 20.4 percent for Yahoo and 8.2 percent for Microsoft. But TMC President Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) recently wrote that could change. Yet one challenge that remains for the company beyond the search functionality is the brand itself.

 

“Are they MSN, Microsoft, Live or Bing?” Tehrani wrote. “If the company can stop changing names and confusing the market for a few years, Bing could actually take market share from Google.”

We’ll wait and see.