Bing 'Madison Stewart' television commercial.
In the recent Bing brand campaign, which launched in mid-May, the company has tried to compete with Google by creating a campaign to appeal to Gen Y, with a push centred around the concept of doing.
The campaign was made by BMF, and runs across TV, online and print, mainly across Nine Entertainment Co assets.
What impact will the campaign have on the Bing brand, and will it have any impact on the dominance of Google in Australia?
Check out what the brand experts think below.
The Leading Edge global strategy partner and head of brand strategy Chrissy Blackburn
I love this new campaign for Bing. It feels like it is absolutely talking to the right people about something that matters to them without the strategy showing (which it undoubtedly was in the Gossip Girl name drop exercise).
In contrast to Google, which behaves more like a utility than a brand, the new Bing campaign brings to life why Bing exists, its core purpose beyond just being a search engine that helps you find stuff. It conveys its purpose through the lens of the people that are using Bing to communicate their own core purpose - to make a difference, to bring about change, to get involved in a positive way to impart something meaningful to the world or their community. It’s an interesting and I would imagine very effective way of getting ‘Gen Do’s’ attention and persuading them to ‘join in’ and engage with the brand.
It makes me think a little differently about Microsoft too. The Bing campaign seems to provide fresh evidence of how Microsoft fulfills its brand ambition of helping people to fulfill their potential so I would imagine that this campaign will ultimately have a positive rub off on the mothership also.
What could they have done differently? OK. I’ve seen the advertising, so I visited the site – but there is nothing there that links the brand idea conveyed in this campaign to the site. It just looks like a search engine so maybe that’s all it is after all. How can I read more about what the featured talent are up to? How can I learn more about what Bing believes? I would believe their brand positioning more if I saw it on their website not just their advertising.
Ogilvy head of strategy Mark Sareff
Asked if opponent Andrew Peacock could make a political revival, Paul Keating unkindly remarked: ‘can a soufflé rise twice?’ When asked if Bing’s new approach will make a dent in Google – I have similar doubts. But there is a way…
Google is incredibly strong. It’s one of the great brands of our time. It’s well-liked. The experience is great. And it has created stickiness through a web of search and mail and Youtube and maps and so on. At best, amazing loyalty. At worst, inertia. Either way, hard to break.
I suspect the brief was to increase relevance. To make Bing cool. The resulting communication uses lovely content ‘sponsored’ by Bing. With an unproven claim: ‘Bing is for Doing’.
I think they’ve sold themselves short. In the recesses of my (admittedly dodgy) memory, I recall Bing having some better features – creating a better user-experience. If so, the role for communication is not to make Bing feel cool. But to direct people to Bing and help them experience the cool. (Behavior before attitude.)
Once is not enough, though. You need them back a few times until Bing starts to feel ‘right’. Can Bing do it? Almost certainly. Check out the “Jay-Z Decoded” idea from Bing/Droga5 US.
A great starting point…
Future Brand Australia managing director Erminio Putignano
I’m in shock: is Bing still around?!
I feel for the guys at BMF. They've done a nice job, but it's unlikely to make any difference in altering the fate of Microsoft's search engine.
Competing with Google requires a whole different game, in which a sweet ad campaign plays only a marginal role.
This is a brutally honest and unforgiving category: technology leads, functionality rules. All the rest is frankly secondary.
Google dominates the category, in fact is the category, and the only way to compete with it is to innovate - deeply, loudly, madly. So madly as to redefine in people’s minds what being a search engine is all about, and why Bing could do it better than Google.
I may feel inspired to fulfill my life long dream to dive with sharks, but my finger on the keyboard still finds no reason to click on bing.com.
PS: Dear Microsoft: why have you gone so soft? Bring back the hunger and smarts of your early days, put up a real fight!
Or perhaps you’re playing the long game: be steady, be nice and wait in line, hoping that sooner or later Google will get in trouble for market dominance.
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