Use Bing, and get chomped on by a vampire
As I've noted in regard to infomercial spoofs, you can always leave it to advertisers to seize on a cultural trend, typically six months late, and beat it to death. Or in the case of vampires, suck all the blood out. No less than Microsoft, which has been called worse things than a bloodsucker by its rivals, is playing into this with the new Bing spot above. It shows the typical vampire type guy—greasy, long hair, severely manicured goatee—about to feast on an unsuspecting fawn after she uses Bing to find a place to eat that's suitably dark for his tastes. I'm actually surprised more advertisers haven't gone vampire for the Halloween season. —Posted by Brian Morrissey Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on October 28, 2009 | Permalink
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Bing's lame jingle starts nice little squabble
Is it possible to have a three-way online flame war in which everyone wins? Apparently so. The battle in question began brewing Wednesday, when Microsoft announced the winner of its first Bing Jingle Contest. The winning entry, above, was created by Jonathan "Rock Cookie Bottom" Mann as part of his mission to write and post a new song each day. TechCrunch blogger MG Siegler took issue with the track in a post headlined "Bing Has Succeeded ... In Finding The Worst Jingle Ever." Mann fired back with another song, below, that supposedly mocked Siegler but in fact made the blogger's writing sound downright lyrical. Then, Michael Arrington weighed in, because he just can't help himself, and Siegler claimed victory on a technicality. None of which really matters. What matters is Microsoft got tons of free publicity for Bing, Mann got a record number of views for one of his songs, and Siegler discovered his accidental songwriting skills. Now come on, everybody. Group hug! See also: |
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Published on August 7, 2009 | Permalink
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Bing keeps you from being a blithering idiot
Microsoft and JWT wasted no time in following up their introductory Bing commercial that we wrote about last week. In these three ads, the new "decision engine" is posed as the cure to a new disease called "Search Overload Syndrome," also known as S.O.S. Ha, clever! (Microsoft is all about curing people these days. Its new Internet Explorer spots treat the freaky disorders F.O.M.S. and S.H.Y.N.E.S.S.) Symptoms of S.O.S. include getting distracted by unrelated links and reciting meta tag descriptions in response to loved ones' queries. I like the spots—they're right on Microsoft's brand promises of productivity, efficiency, etc. But I always thought getting lost with other links was part of the fun of Google. (These ads are almost anti-curiosity, actually.) When I think about it, though, I do waste an impressive amount of time exploring unrelated links. If Microsoft could invent Bing-epedia, my productivity could truly soar.
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Published on June 11, 2009 | Permalink
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Microsoft's Bing prepares to save the world
Here we have a breaking campaign from a giant global company that's struggling to compete in a brutal market. It talks about making "decisions that help us get to the right place at the right time." Out with the old, in with the new. Reinvention. Revving a shiny new engine. But this isn't one of GM's "We're not dead yet!" spots by Deutsch (though there is car footage). No, it's introductory spot by JWT for Microsoft's Bing search engine (sorry, decision engine). Oh, I know the campaigns have vastly different purposes and can't be fairly compared, yadda yadda. It's just the similarity of the images and approach ... big-time drama by way of (mostly) stock footage. The Bing ad uses a snippet of Clockwork Orange-style wide-eyed thought-control footage—you know, where the subject is forced to keep his eyes open as images whip past on screen. That represents the chaotic state of digital information overload. A new search engine (sorry, decision engine) and a bunch of new commercials won't add to that, surely. |
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Published on June 3, 2009 | Permalink
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