Who has $80 million to $100 million to spend on an Ad Campaign?
Well, if you want to win market share as a revamped search engine, the answer would be Microsoft’s promotion of Bing!
The question now is, what search engine is so good and has more meaningful features that you would actually not use Google? And, with Google having almost a 70% market share of the search engine usage, that will call for some pretty stiff competition.
comScore recently released some early indications that are somewhat positive for Bing – even though the initial trials seem to be favorable, it will definitely be interesting to see if these initial results turn into market share growth.
So let’s get back to the question why Microsoft would spend that kind of money in this economy? Seems as if local search represents a huge, relatively untapped revenue source. There are numerous estimates out there and it looks like the local search industry could eclipse $15 billion dollars in the next several years … yes, I guess spending $100 million for a portion of that return just might be worth the investment.
Interesting tidbit on why Microsoft chose to name the search engine “Bing.” Supposedly the name was “memorable, short, easy to spell and function well as a URL around the world. Also, the word would remind people of the sound made during ‘the moment of discovery and decision making.'”