14 DAY TRIAL // It’s almost that time of the year again, and Microsoft is not wasting any time getting into the holiday spirit. The company has all the ingredients available, Santa Claus, elves, Christmas tree, and even a kid that persistently wants an Xbox 360 and would hear nothing else. Just watch the video embedded at the bottom of this article and you’re bound to understand. The software giant has released the first Bing video commercial of the 2009 holiday season, and, no surprise here, the approach is the same as in past Bing ads. (via LiveSide)
Specifically, the Redmond company is passing Bing off as a solution to search overload, even in the holiday season. This is, of course, consistent with the company’s overall strategy to brand Bing as a decision engine, as opposed to just a simple search engine. The end message is essentially that Bing will help through the clutter of query responses, and not let holiday shoppers that hunt for products online be victims of search overload.
Bing is set to keep festive times and search overload separate, and it will do so not only for the actual users of the search/decision engine, but also for visitors of the MSN page. This week, Microsoft has introduced its largest overhaul of MSN, and Bing is an integral part of the new design. The company’s search engine is one of the main beneficiaries of the MSN integration, with approximately 45% of its searches coming via the portal.
“You will see Bing’s integration throughout the MSN experience in key areas including shopping, travel, local, and as a way of highlighting hot topics, trends or people. Detailed local information is offered on the new MSN Local Edition, which is the only local online source that smartly combines Bing search and your real-time community news, which is grouped by ZIP code,” revealed Kristin Meldahl from the Bing Team.