Bing Ads Break Today: Is Less Really the New More?

As early as Sunday, Microsoft’s new search engine was up and live. Today, the first TV ads for Bing broke with an emotional pitch tying fruitless searching to the collapse of the American economy. Sounds like a stretch, but there’s no disputing the fact that searching on Google or Yahoo can be a frustrating experience, resulting in time consuming sifting through millions of results to find exactly what you want. Okay, so most of us stop after the second page, but the question remains, can Bing deliver better results? And, will the emotional appeal drive us to Bing or leave us shaking our heads? Watch the ad after the jump.

While I don’t think the economic crisis was caused by GM execs lost in Google searches, Bing dangles an appealing promise: The end of search overload. What’s behind the promise? Microsoft says the idea is to shift work from consumers to search engines, by answering more queries on the search results page, without having to click through to a result. This may be bad news for sites looking for more visitors, but it great for consumers.

Jon Tinter, general manager of strategic partnerships in Micorsoft’s online audience business group said, "Search is a habit. When you talk to people you hear a lot of stated satisfaction, but they don't behave like satisfied customers -- and we think that's where the opportunity is … 15% of the time, search queries go abandoned without answer.” Microsoft’s goal is to cut the clutter, providing fewer, but far more relevant results.

Microsoft has developed Bing to tackle task and decision sessions like flight information, UPS package tracking, and simply the weather. For example, according to Microsoft, if I type in weather, I’ll get my local forecast. Let’s try it. Yes, I get a colorful graphic showing a five day forecast, but unfortunately it’s for Denver and I don’t even live in Colorado. On Google I get the forecast for my actual location. On to UPS. I am expecting a package from hhgregg, so I typed in the tracking number. UPS is the top result, but I still have to click over to the site to see my scheduled delivery date. Same result from Google. Bing should pull my IP address and deliver customized results, but looks like there’s a bit of tweaking to do.

The Bing interface is refreshingly clean and results are displayed by helpful categories. For example, I type shoes and results are grouped by shoe brands, styles of shoes, Top 10 shoes, shoes buying guide, reviews of shoes, and most helpful of all, listings for shoes near you. But once again, I don’t live in Denver.

Bing has potential. With its focus on improving the areas of travel, shopping and products, local and health, Bing could become the go to search engine for a huge number of consumers on the go. A mobile search app for cell phones is a logical next step … assuming they can figure out where I live.