Microsoft markets Bing as “cutting through information overload”
// March 9th, 2010 // Information Overload
Interesting positioning from Microsoft for Bing, its search engine to rival Google. According to Marketing Week, here’s how UK MD Ashley Highfield describes the TV advertising campaign they are launching in the UK this week:
“The ad campaign brings to life the concept of Bing as a decision engine, a tool that both cuts through the information overload and offers a new search experience. We’re confident that this will help grow our user base, offering advertisers an alternative search solution.”
As someone who watches almost no commercial TV (and what I do watch is recorded so I can fast-forward through the ads), I am genuinely interested in seeing this ad. It’s the first time since Xerox’s 2007 viral video that I can think of a technology vendor using “information overload” as part of the selling proposition in an above-the-line campaign. In fact, the only other instance I can think of is Xobni in their sales material for the enterprise version of their inbox plug-in.
Is this a cynical exercise on Microsoft’s part – tapping into the information overload zeitgeist – or is the company genuinely trying to demonstrate it is dealing with the issue? Certainly, Outlook 2010 has a number of new features that will help customers manage email better. If this is a trend, it is a welcome one. With past innovations such as the red flag and four different ways of letting you know a new email had arrived, there is some lost ground to recover on this one…
