Using TV ads to promote search engines certainly isn’t a new concept, but, as the stakes between Google and Microsoft’s Bing heat up, the practice has grown in prevalence.
Here is a collection of fascinating TV commercials for search engines from 1998 (more here):
I’ve been surprised by the number of commercials I’ve seen advertising for Google and Bing. Google’s Parisian Love advertisement, which premiered during the Super Bowl, received a lot of press coverage. Bing has recently launched an aggressive TV ad campaign. Although the US budget is unknown, Microsoft plans to spend millions of pounds airing these commercials in the UK. Bing’s commercials feature victims suffering from “Search Overload Syndrome,” and they urge viewers to “Bing & Decide.” These compete with Google’s “Search Stories,” which silently illustrate short stories using features of Google search.
Both ad campaigns are creative… but are they necessary? Google’s most lucrative product is built on the premise that traditional media channels are growing less relevant. Do you think this presents a conflicting message to companies considering increasing the percentage of their budget spent on advertising through Google?
