It’s been interesting to see how Microsoft’s new search engine Bing is doing. While still a relatively weak competitor to Google, it does have a few things going for it that challenger brands can learn from.
First and foremost is the way Microsoft has branded Bing: “Not just a search engine..it’s the world’s first decision engine.” This is an example of Trout and Ries’s second immutable law of marketing:
If you can’t be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in.
Now whether Bing can really help you make decisions remains to be seen, but the clear differentiation gets your attention and at least makes you want to visit and test drive Bing.
With its $80 million advertising budget, Microsoft is betting it can at least make a big enough dent in Google’s hegemony to earn serious consideration when marketers are putting their paid search budgets together.
Interestingly, Bing seems to be utilizing the formula for branding that we’ve found compelling here at The Creative Alliance:
uniqueness + frequency + consistency = brand identity
Bing’s differentiation as a “decision engine” (uniqueness) and its $80 million ad budget (frequency) are set in place. So it will be interesting to see if consistency of branding is maintained throughout the search engine wars and the ever-present Microsoft/Yahoo deal-making.
Ultimately, all that Bing really needs to do to be successful is to get a foothold—to be mentioned in the same paid search purchasing conversation as Google by an increasing number of marketers.
While it is unlikely that Google’s dominance will ever be overturned, it is actually losing market share (down 4% from November 2008) to a growing host of competitors around the world. If Bing is to be one of the successful competitors, it will be due in part to its effective use of differentiation as a brand strategy.