Television commercials for the Bing search engine from Microsoft take a new tack that includes sports stars who are “doing” things. One is Kevin Pearce, the snowboarder who is coming back from grave injuries.Bing, the search engine from Microsoft, is changing advertising approaches for the first time since 2009, when it bing-ed its first “bing.”
A campaign that is scheduled to begin on Sunday will declare, “Bing is for doing.” And yes, the “ing” in “doing” is meant to echo the “ing” in “Bing.”
The new theme replaces the original theme, “Bing and decide,” which presented Bing as a search engine that, unlike Brand G (a k a Google), helped consumers make more informed decisions.
“We thought now is a good time to evolve from decisions to doing,” said Sean Carver, director for advertising at Bing, particularly as Bing is aimed at younger consumers, the Generation Y cohort of ages 18 to 34.
To underline the more active attitude, the initial ads in the new campaign will tell stories about young sports stars like Bobby Brown, a freeskier; Kaitlyn Farrington, a half-pipe snowboarder; and Kevin Pearce, the snowboarder who is recovering from a traumatic head injury he received at the end of 2009.
Mr. Pearce recently began snowboarding again, and his story is the centerpiece of emotional commercials that he narrates, which conclude with online content found on Bing with headlines like “Kevin Pearce Back to Boarding.”
“I made it; I’m here, I’m chillin’,” Mr. Pearce says at the end of the spots.
The change in the Bing campaign was prompted by the positive reaction to spots that ran online and on television in the fall, which told the story of a charitable organization, known as Krochet Kids, run by young men.
“Gen Y is a generation of doers,” said Rob Palmer, executive creative director at the Portland, Ore., office of Razorfish, part of the Publicis Groupe, which became the Bing creative agency of record about a year ago after working on digital assignments for the brand.
That led to a decision to portray Bing as “a search engine for doing things,” he added, a more proactive presentation than a decision aid.
The style of the Krochet Kids ads will permeate the new campaign, Mr. Palmer said, which will be about “real people doing inspiring, cool things and inspiring other real people to do inspiring, cool things.”
Mr. Pearce is scheduled to take part in a panel at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday that will help kick off the campaign, along with commercials during National Football League conference championships. He is to chat on Twitter on Wednesday, assisting Bing in introducing a hash tag, #doing.
The campaign will be expanded from sports stars into music and entertainment stars, Mr. Carver said, among them the musician Theophilus London.
The Bing and Razorfish executives declined to discuss the budget for the campaign. According to the Kantar Media unit of WPP, Microsoft spent $107.4 million in 2009 to advertise Bing and $155.9 million in 2010.
Ad spending for the first nine months of 2011 totaled $75.9 million, Kantar Media reported, compared with $111.3 million in the same period of 2010.