Bing Rebrands To Appeal To Younger Consumers

In a bold attempt to redefine Bing Microsoft has decided to shift gears and advertise to Gen Y with emotional commercials and a running theme of an active lifestyle.

Huntington Beach, CA (I-Newswire) September 14, 2012 - Microsoft’s search engine darling Bing has decided to change its advertising approach since 2009 when the company first announced via “bing”. The new campaign proudly states, “Bing is for doing.” The new theme takes the place of the old, “Bing and decide,” which poised Bing as a search engine that gave web users more informed decisions than rival Google.

Bing is making a bold move to gear it’s newly fangled search engine toward younger customers between the ages of 18 and 34. According to Bings director for advertising, “We thought now is a good time to evolve from decisions to doing.” To achieve the most impact and define themselves as a more active brand the new ad campaign will feature stories about young Gen Y sports stars like Kaitlyn Farrington, a half pipe snowboarder and Bobby Brown, a freeskier. A timeline of emotional commercials narrated by Kevin Pearce, the snowboarder recovering from a traumatic brain injury he sustained in 2009 will share his emotional story. The story will conclude with content that can be found online through Bing.

The Publicis Groupe based in Portland, Oregon want to steer Bing into the direction of a search engine for doing things to mimic the mentality of the Gen Y doers. To achieve this the new campaign will feature “real people doing inspiring, cool things and inspiring other real people to do inspiring, cool things.” The advertising campaign will grow from sports stars into music and entertainment stars that speak to the younger audience.

While no one knows for sure how much Microsoft is spending on this shiny new rebranding campaign the Kantar Media unit of WPP, Microsoft spent $107.4 million in 2009 to advertise Bing and $155.9 million in 2010. Kantar Media reported that ad spending for the first nine months of 2011 totaled out at $75.9 million while costs for advertising in 2012 were reported at $111.3 million.