New Bing Search Overload Commercials Invade The UK

This week Microsoft is rolling out new variations of their ‘Search Overload’ ads in the UK in a bid against Google’s choke hold on the UK search market. Bing has only a 3% market share compared to Google’s 90% — making this a definite search engine David v Goliath battle. Not a position Microsoft is used to: playing the role of David, in this case.

 The multimillion-pound TV ad campaign will look familiar to anyone who’s seen a few of the Bing ads shown in the US.

 It’s been nine months since Bing’s launch and according to comScore’s measurements the search engine IS gaining market share. However that is mostly at the expense of Yahoo not Google. This is good for Bing since it’s growing (albeit usually in percentage points that look like 0.2% gain), but bad since it’s not really hurting Google in any meaningful way.

 With all the recent press around Google and privacy policies and issues, there may be some room for Bing to make further gains if they play their cards right. Maybe they should replace ‘search overload’ with a more direct “It’s 10PM does your search engine know what you’re doing?” campaign.

 Anyways, here’s one of the new commercials rolling out in the UK this week — they get points for the most creative use of “Euston station” — oh, who am I kidding, the ONLY creative use of “Euston station.”

 Your thoughts on the Bing/Google search battle and the now international search overload campaign are appreciated.