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Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

Summary: Microsoft is launching a new ad campaign for its Bing search engine. The message "Bing is for doing."

Mary Jo Foley

By for All About Microsoft |

When Microsoft and ad agency JWT launched a campaign back in 2009 to brand Microsoft's Bing as a "decision engine" rather than a "search engine," Microsoft was hoping to reposition the search category.

This weekend, during the the NFC Championship, and again during the X Games coverage on ESPN, Microsoft will take its Bing advertising campaign to the next phase.

"Bing has traditionally highlighted the decisions people make and now, with this new campaign, Bing will illustrate how decisions enable people to go beyond searching to doing," according to a January 20 post on the Bing Community blog.

The message is Bing is more about helping people decide; it's also key to enabling them to do things. "Bing is for doing" is the new tagline of the ad campaign created by Publicis Groupe's Razorfish.

Here's one of the ad spots that will be highlighted:

<a href='http://www.bing.com/videos/browse?mkt=en-us&vid=e0b69573-e6bb-4d7d-b1e9-a949d063e263&from=sharepermalink&src=v5:embed::' target='_new' title='Bing is for #Doing: Kevin Pearce’s Story' >Video: Bing is for #Doing: Kevin Pearce’s Story</a>

Bing surpassed Yahoo in terms of U.S. search marketshare last month, according to comScore. But Google still holds 65.9 percent share, compared to MicroHoo's combined 29.6 percent.

Topic: Microsoft

About

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

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34 comments
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  • RE: Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

    Bing is for donig what? Ironically they never mentioned search.
    Return_of_the_jedi
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

      @Return_of_the_jedi wow... you didnt get it? It is for more than search...
      apetti
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

        @apetti

        I'm sorry, I wasn't part of the focus group. What didn't I get?
        Return_of_the_jedi
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

        @apetti <br>dont feed sh1tty trolls .
        vivianvein
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

        @Return_of_the_jedi

        I think the idea is that you don't have to go in and out of each individual website to find information, but that the information is provided within Bing itself. It's not, as they say, "just a bunch of blue links."

        Not that Google doesn't do the same to some extent...
        ian.aldrighetti
        Reply Vote

  • Market shares

    Searching around for search engine market share I see a wide variance in market shares. Is ComScore the established industry leader, or is it being selectively chosen?

    Second, is Bing a moneymaker for Microsoft, or as some allege is it a defensive play to try to take some of the premium profit away from Google for other strategic reasons, that have to do with smartphone OS's and browsers and online application suites?

    Lastly, if anyone knows - Google was front and center protesting SOPA this week. Bing didn't alter its page. Why not?
    HollywoodDog
    Reply Vote

    • Bing is almost an R&D division

      @HollywoodDog

      Much of the technology developed for Bing ends up in other commercial products and benefits their entire product line. Search in the desktop, server, SharePoint. Intention analysis and speach are also developed through Bing.

      It doesn't make money directly but it's beneficial for MS as a whole. Not nearly the defensive strategy many consider it to be.
      LiquidLearner
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

        @LiquidLearner
        Fair enough regarding the r&d. The money spent to, ineffectively in my opinion, buy or build Bing marketshare, which does nothing to improve the services, but looks to be about Google, is the basis for critiques and the use of words such as defensive.

        Looking at this ad campaign in abstract as a non-Bing user, I would have to ask Microsoft's Mad Men, "Wasn't I doing stuff already?"
        DannyO_0x98
        Reply Vote

    • Letting people get around wikipedia being offline was "front and center"?

      Or was it the addition of the black box that didnt change anyones behavior that you consider so? Both were incredibly lame of google. Of course they would never participate in going offline but working to actually defeat wikipedia efforts was classic. All google tried to do was create a perception of doing more while not really doing anything substantive. Perception was key for them though because of their exposure to sopa though youtubes constant violations of ip distribution.
      Johnny Vegas
      Reply Vote

      • Dude, symbolism matters

        @Johnny Vegas ... Just because Google remained functional doesn't negate their message. Wikipedia played a bit harder, but all you had to do was disable JavaScript to use it.

        SOPA proponents got a Texas whoopin'. I'm sorry to see Microsoft didn't join in on the beat-down.

        Remember, the other side is Rupert Murdoch's lawyers wanting to shut down what you can read on the internet. It's antithetical to everything a search engine stands for.
        HollywoodDog
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

      Bing is not a moneymaker. If you see on a whole, Bing is actually costing Microsoft lots of money. It is losing more than gaining.
      MayankSingh_781
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

      Bing is not a moneymaker. If you see on a whole, Bing is actually costing Microsoft lots of money. It is losing more than gaining.
      MayankSingh_781
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

      Bing is not a moneymaker. If you see on a whole, Bing is actually costing Microsoft lots of money. It is losing more than gaining.
      MayankSingh_781
      Reply Vote

  • Smart move...

    I thought the whole "Decison Engine" thing was stupid. People tend to like making their own decisions, and the implication was that Microsoft was going to make your decisions for you. I'll continue using Google because there is no reason for me to use Bing, but from a pure marketing standpoint this is a much stronger tagline.
    jasonp@...
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

      @jasonp@...
      Well, the tag-line might be better... but the actual message is still ridiculously muddled. What I got from the video: Bing helped this guy recover?! Um... FAIL!
      Technical John
      Reply Vote

    • Microsoft is the worst marketer of its products

      @jasonp@... that I have ever seen.

      There was a recent series of ads parodying Apple fanboys lined up on the street waiting hours for a phone. That ad was funny because it was true. I thought 'oh Microsoft finally produced an ad that works'.

      It was from Samsung.
      HollywoodDog
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

    "Google was front and center protesting SOPA this week. " Huh? I saw more press on Wikipedia than Google. And when it is major websites (like Wikipedia) how can you say Google was front and center...they all were.
    ItsTheBottomLine
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

    The Russian reversal (apologies to Yakov Smirnoff)... "In Soviet Russia, you don't make search on Bing, Bing makes searches on you!"
    jefmud
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft's Bing: Mere 'decision engine' no more

      @jefmud Ahh.. but google know everything there is to know about you.. and have been caught sooo many times tracking user data by nerfarious means.. Bing never has been.. because it doesn't track you nearly as much as google..
      Malcolm
      ursulus
      Reply Vote

  • Interesting that Microsoft is advertising to the mainstream

    It's interesting that Microsoft uses commercial ads to lure people to use its search engine, I don't ever recall seeing a Google ad. Either way, good ol competition is a good thing for the consumer. At least in this case, Microsoft is playing by the rules with advertising, and not its usual antics of software patent lawsuits against competitors.
    Chris_Clay
    Reply Vote
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