JWT's $100M Campaign for Microsoft's Bing Is Failing
JWT's $100 million traditional media campaign for Microsoft search engine Bing is failing, Adweek reports. BNET predicted in April that the campaign would be a waste of money.
It appears that users are happy with Google, despite the Bing ads' claim that the current search experience delivers a cacaphony of irrelevant results. 25 percent of users tried Bing, but most did not stick with it.
We re-learn several old lessons about marketing from this:
- Consumer loyalty in the tech sector is heavily tied to high switching costs: the superior functionality and habituation add-ons that make it difficult for consumers to switch brands. (Google wins this race.)
- A campaign of that size will, by sheer logistics, waste most of its money in traditional media.
- Traditional media is a bad way to introduce an online product, where word-of-mouth is the dominant ad media.