bing, microsoft, branding, rebranding, google, internet branding, kumo

Is BING the New Thing? Rebranding Microsoft Live Search

June 1st, 2009 2 Comments

Let’s face it… Microsoft has never been the leader when it comes to cool brand names. But that might be changing. This past week, the folks in Redmond, WA announced the new name for their improved search engine… Bing! You might say Bing has a ring to it, and it’s a heck of a lot better than their previous literal/descriptive name, Live Search (as in, “Could you ‘Live Search’ that for me?”) Or Kumo, their stealth code name, which sounded more like an Alaskan sled dog.

Bing is short and (like the cherry) sweet. It has has verb potential, almost like when you “ping” something, as in pinging a server. Whether it can replace the ubiquitous use of Google remains to be seen. It’s never easy when you are trying to unseat the leader, which by the way has a fairly good brand name already. A lot of it will depend on the service itself. Microsoft has improved the name, but have they sufficiently improved the product? Enough for folks to change old, establish search habits? Moving from number two to number one takes some doing… just ask Pepsi.

Here’s what makes that question even more interesting.

According to Advertising Age, Microsoft has $80 to $100 million planned to burn that brand name into just about any brain on the planet. That amount can easily pound a square peg into a round hole. Google has never faced a direct onslaught like this, and so it will be interesting to see how they respond in kind.

http://www.sportsbrandreview.squarespace.com JP

Interesting post Phillip. I think Google will always have it over Microsoft in terms of branding. Your Pepsi example seems to be a good one in this case. Microsoft will probably do enough to grab the attention of those looking for a change – like Pepsi drinkers. But i don’t know if Bing will be able to penetrate, and more importantly, entrench itself in the market like Google has.

Cheers, JP
http://puretungsten.com admin

JP — Good point. Beating the #1 player is always tough, especially if they (Google) are doing a decent job. The car company Avis actually ran an ad campaign years ago to that effect, telling people they were #2 (compared to Hertz) and therefore, “We try harder at Avis.” It turned out to be one of the more famous campaigns but didn’t lift Avis to #1.

I still think it’s going to take both deep pockets (which Microsoft has) as well as a substantially superior user experience to gain any significant share of Google’s search. We’ll see.

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Is BING the New Thing? Rebranding Microsoft Live Search

Is BING the New Thing? Rebranding Microsoft Live Search

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