MS to Invest Millions in New Bing Search Engine Ads

Microsoft's revamped search engine, long rumored to be named 'Kumo,' is now being called 'Bing'. The belief is that the search engine has a hip, easy-to-remember name, and will fare much better among casual users.

Multi-Million Dollar Advertising Blitz

In total, Microsoft is expected to use online, television, print and radio mediums that will see the company dole out anywhere from $80 to $100 million in advertising expenses. To put this figure into perspective, Google's entire advertising budget for 2008 reached about $25 million.

Analysts do not expect Microsoft's ads to call out rival companies by name. Rather, Bing advertisements will attempt to convince the Internet audience that with the "search engines of today" a person is likely to miss out on all that a search experience could be.

The missed search experience, of course, is speaking of the highly-publicized "related categories" feature on the side of the results page. An online consumer looking to score a piece of electronics, for example, would be offered supporting links to reviews, price comparisons, etc. If a person conducts a search on "Gene Simmons" using Bing, links to biographies, albums and song lyrics would appear. (Source: idg.no)

Why are "related categories" so important?

Microsoft was very vocal in pointing out that 42 per cent of all Internet searches need to be refined after the first query. On top of this, 25 percent of all post-search clicks are done using the back button instead of activating a website link. This means that most people are unsuccessful in their first attempt at locating information and must start from scratch to refine their search. (Source: pcworld.com)

The bad news for Microsoft is that rival companies are not waiting around for the debut of 'Bing' before making changes to their own results pages. Google recently rolled out their own set of tools that help users to refine their searches, while Yahoo is in the process of launching their very own refinement features in the coming months.

Obviously, dumping millions of dollars into advertising shows that Microsoft would rather have people 'Binging' than 'Googling' in the near future. Whether or not this comes to pass will take some time and effort on the company's part, though dedicating a large portion of their finances to help with the media blitz ensures that they are, at least, starting off on the right track.