That $2.0B Bing Advertising Campaign in the U.K. (I just Googled about it.)

This post was inspired by Stan Schroeder’s post on Mashable entitled, “Bing takes on ‘Goliath’ Google with Huge UK Advertising Campaign.” Apparently, Microsoft will spend up to $2.0B on an advertising campaign in the U.K.  To put this “huge” campaign into perspective, Microsoft current has a market cap of approximately $253B.

65 Google buzzers replied with comments. I commented: “Microsoft is pushing Bing prematurely. Wired ran a very good article about Google which, among other things, compared the accuracy of results between Google and Bing. Bing was pathetic.”  The Wired article is entitled, “Exclusive: How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web.” In that article, Google’s accuracy is compared with Microsoft Bing’s.

I have no doubt that Google will dominate internet search, perhaps in perpetuity, but this has less to do with the algorithm Google uses than the Wired title suggests. Google is womping the competitors because it has something they don’t… better data and a steady flow of it.  When I say better data, I don’t mean that Google knows about web pages that other search engines don’t (although it’s quite possible). Google search is the smartest around because it has a phenomenal algorithm, no doubt, but also because it has been collecting data generated by humans (clicks) for a very long time. Between the data and the algorithm, Google can predict what content you want to view. In a sense, Google search is the high watermark for artificial intelligence. It can predict human behavior based on a person typing a word or two.

According to the Inside Google special on CNBC, Google saves everything typed into Google indefinitely. Your own search results are identified with your Google account and IP address for a period of 18 months and then anonymized. This information makes Google smarter. Now, a full 20% of Google searches are actually tailored to you and differ from Joe Schmoe’s search results.

Enter Bing.  Bing is an outgrowth of MSN Search.  MSN Search was never a dominant player in the search business. AltaVista, Yahoo and others were Google’s chief competitors. In the early days, search was dominated by who had the biggest map of the internet which was a function of the “spidering” software.  Another factor was the algorithm used to produce results. Google won the search war but it did it by being innovative and leveraging data. It learned if you clicked the what you were looking for and didn’t return to Google for another X seconds.

Microsoft is trying to play catch up. It needs to brand Bing but it also needs Bing to accurately predict what you want to click. How can it accomplish this when Google has virtually monopolized the search market? Maybe spending $2.0B in the UK will bring in $2.0B+ worth of data (clicks). Then again, maybe it won’t.  It will be difficult to leverage this localized data because Google will generate more and arguably better data in the same period of time globally. It’s data where Google excels; even if Bing had precisely the same algorithm and the same map of the web, it would lose the search war on data alone.

Bing’s strategy seems somewhat outside of the box. Colorful graphics and promotions seem to be in Bing’s playbook. These seem like mere window dressing to me. When it comes to getting accurate results, Google wins. It knows what I want to click. Will Bing ever be smart enough to be a viable alternative? I’m not sure but spending $2.0B in advertising off in the U.K. won’t propel it ahead of Google.

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