BING – A lesson in weak branding
Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff | June 7th, 2009
Microsoft has recently launched BING, replacing Live Search, in their latest attempt to win back some of the market share they’ve lost to Google. Microsoft is more than willing to invest the money needed for a successful product launch, with an estimated 80-100 million dollar budget planned.
But will it be enough?
Probably not, because BING has been launched on a shaky foundation. Something that few people outside the search engine industry know is that BING is actually an acronym for But It’s Not Google. It’s pretty weak from a branding perspective to tell people what you aren’t instead of telling them what you are. The bigger flaw, however, is that the brand comes off whiny like a kid who feels their sibling gets more attention than they do.
A powerful brand tells people what a company is all about deep down at their core. It conveys their values and ethics. It tells you what they do and who they serve. No matter how effective their technology may evolve to be, BING fails as a brand, and that will most likely mean that it never achieves the traction it needs to really take off.
Microsoft should kill BING where it lies, start off with a solid brand and go from there. However before doing that, they should probably listen to feedback from users and take a long, hard look at their technology first.
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2 Responses to “BING – A lesson in weak branding”
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June 10th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
I think you made some good points. There is obviously a lot to know about this.
[Reply]
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Excellent article, bookmarked for future referrence :)
[Reply]