Tuesday, March 09, 2010:
It really is the clash of the titans-this rivalry between two of the Internet's biggest behemoths. The latest is that Microsoft is planning to launch a multimillion-pound TV ad campaign for its search engine Bing, in a bid to take on Google's hegemony of the UK search market, says the Guardian. Microsoft is pumping $2 billion into the campaign, which will take off with a series of TV ads.
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"This is a big moment – we are taking out our slingshots and taking on Goliath," said Ashley Highfield, managing director and vice president, consumer and online, Microsoft UK. He said that he believed Bing would be a boon for both consumers and advertisers.
The three-month campaign, which includes three TV ads created by the agency JWT, will begin tomorrow and would use the caption "Bing and and decide". The ads purport to show that Bing is a relatively straightforward, easy-to-use search engine. "People feel overawed by the Internet and what they turn up when they are searching," said Highfield. "We are also in a world where people have forgotten there is an alternative search engine."
The going won't be easy for Microsoft though: currently it holds a meagre 3 per cent share of the search market while Google controls nearly 90 per cent. The TV campaign is slated to have a one-month run and then in two-week bursts until mid-June. It will be accompanied by a digital campaign across Microsoft's network and would also air on social networking websites.
Ashish Joshi, EFYTIMES News Network
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