Microsoft

Microsoft Bing Product Placement
June 05, 2009 PPN Staff
Microsoft’s foray into the search engine market is Bing, a new search engine that is set to compete against Google. To boost exposure, Bing is said to have secured product placements in the Jimmy Fallon, MTV, and Hulu.

In a recent interview, Yusuf Mehdi—senior vice president of online services for Microsoft in Redmond—spoke about Bing.

“It’s a very tall marketing challenge and a very tall product challenge,” acknowledged Mehdi. “It’s going to take multiple steps to get where we want to go,” he added, “and this is the first step.”

Mehdi says that they are aiming to win a fan base and to start growing a market share. He says that most search engines have lost market share in the last five years, except for Google.

“The key will be whether we deliver a product and connect with people emotionally in the advertising,” emphasized Mehdi. In order to do that, he says the company has to do something “surprising.”

According to some statistics, Bing has had early success. In terms of web traffic referrals, Bing is outperforming the regular Microsoft Live/ MSN organic search functions. The site has been an active referrer. But compared to the bigger search engines, Bing still has much room to grow.