The second speaker of the day was Natalie Bowman of MSN to discuss what Bing has done as a “challenger brand” to try to attract users. She indicated that they were looking to “Break the habit of people using Google.” In order to do so, they knew they had to do 4 things:
Be disruptive
They started with a big advertising campaign to grab people’ attention, attempting to make it disruptive and capture people’s attention.
Be different
They attempted to do this, not only through their disruptive and different advertising, but also through unique online features, such as their travel, restaurant, Q&A, and Map features.
Be data driven
They utilize metrics and measurement to see how they were doing. She said, “We’re an engineering organization, so Microsoft doesn’t do anything unless we can track or measure it.”
Be dangerous
They had key sponsorship activations around the Sundance film festival and Jay Z’s new book launch. They used some celebrities at Sundance and decisions they had to make, to show how their “decision engine could help.” They took a risk with Jay Z’s book launch, turning every page of his book into something physical and symbolic that could be found somewhere around the globe. Fans had to use Bing to decode and find the items in the real world. If they were the first person to find it in the real world, they would get a signed copy of the book. They had over a half million people participate. It provided a lot of out of home opportunities for co-promotion.
Personally, I think the Bing advertising was very disrupting and gained a pretty good amount of traction. I also believe they did a pretty good job of trying to develop some unique offerings in travel, dinning, etc. to differentiate themselves… and, no doubt track and measured the heck out of it. However, I can’t say that sponsorships with celebrities is all that “risky” as the speaker claimed, or “dangerous.” All in all, it was an interesting perspective on how Bing tried to gain some traction.
