Hasta La Creative!

Microsoft took a different approach this time with its year-end roundup for Bing. Instead of simply copying Google's Zeitgeist with its own year in review, it focused instead on the inspiring (and presumably well-searched) women of 2013.

Set to the lady-power ballad (and intended gay-rights anthem) "Brave" by Sara Bareilles, the video parallaxes its way through some of the inspiring women who did great things in 2013. It includes Margaret Thatcher, whose main contribution to 2013 was dying. But in general, it's a feel-good mélange designed for maximum inspirational shareability. It's also designed not to offend by only vaguely referencing ladies on the front lines (where they've been for a while, btw) and leaving out the word "marriage" before the word "equality."

It already has a couple hundred bitter comments on YouTube about how Microsoft didn't out a video celebrating the heroic men of 2013—posted by people who haven't yet figured that's every other year-end roundup out there.

Microsoft's right. We're gonna need some bravery for the year ahead.

Yahoo! has thrown in the towel and entered into an agreement with Microsoft to use Bing as the search engine across all Yahoo sites, whilst being the paid search sales force for Bing.

It’s an acknowledgment that separately they are not threat to Google, but by combining Bing’s superior search technology and desire to innovate, with […]

Bing was on last night, and no, it’s not Bing Crosby.

Microsoft, tired of watching Google cash in on the search engine game, has been testing their super secret search engine for some months now under the ultra-secret name, Kumo. (It is hard to believe that these people make money, isn’t it?) Along with the huge product release comes the equally huge budget, rumored to be upwards of $80 Million, although Microsoft would not confirm.

“We’ll have what I would call a big budget — big enough that I had to gulp when I approved the budget,” said Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, who unveiled Bing at a technology conference in Carlsbad, California, run by the All Things Digital tech blog.

The spot, code named “Manifesto,” was on prime time television last night. While the visuals are sometimes a bit confusing, the Google-gauging “one-liners,” such as “we don’t need queries and keywords if the bring back questions and confusion,” and “from this moment on, the search overload is officially, over” are loud and clear.

The creative kudos go to JWT for coming up with a very cool spot. However, it is not known if they came up with the name, and as everybody knows, part of winning the online new product introduction game is coming up with a goofy, yet memorable name. Such as “Bing.” Your search is done.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Project Manager, and New Business Account Coordinator. His passion is writing. If you would like to get in touch with Jeff, please leave a reply or follow the links: www.linkedin.com or www.twitter.com.