Does Microsoft's Bing Ad Blame Google for the Financial Crisis?

The new ad for Microsoft's new search engine decision engine Bing is out, and it is frenetic. "While everyone was searching, there was bailing," intones a bemused young voice over images of foreclosure signs and Wall Street freak outs. He continues: "While everyone was lost in the links, there was collapsing."  Photos of financial distress and destruction blink in and out like a Michael Bay action sequence, or a Ken Burns feature on fast-forward.

Why is Microsoft comparing online searches with the recession? And is it the weirdest indictment of Google you've ever heard?



On a strictly literal level, Microsoft is absolutely right, I guess. The economy hasn't been too hot recently. Meanwhile, there have been lots of online searches. These are not debatable points. Points for accuracy.

But the emptiness of Microsoft's comparison reveals the fact that advertising a search (or "decision") engine is a little weird. The reason I would guess that Yahoo and Google haven't done this is because there's no exciting way to demonstrate the utility of a search engine. And if there's no exciting way to show your product working, there's nothing left but to make a strobe-light collage of faces and airplanes and say, "Last year stunk, so why not try something new?" At the end of the day, it's like advertising a new dictionary/thesaurus by saying "You don't need a new word-search tool. You need a word-deciding tool!" Actually, I still need a word search tool, but I appreciate the ambition.

Last, I want to point out that this image flashes through the ad a couple times, because while everyone was bailing and collapsing and searching, the one thing we could always count on was the Internet remaining a series of tubes.