Bing Advertising Fail

by danperry on June 30, 2009

in Online Marketing

Details, details, details. If there’s one thing I learned in the Navy was attention to detail.

Looks like Bing may have forgotten a very small detail in their online advertising. Saw an ad for Bing online today that was specific to golf. Here it is:

Golf Advertisement for Bing

Golf Advertisement for Bing

According to the ad you can enter a tournament in the Bing search box, and see who’s on the leader board. The example is the LPGA Corning Classic. In the ad, note that the term “LPGA Corning Classic” is spelled out. Once you click on the ad, you get this results page:

Bing SERP

Bing SERP

Note that the results page doesn’t have spaces between the terms LPGA and Corning and Classic. If you actually add the spaces (or click on the link to it directly beneath the search box) you’ll see the correct result.

The correct SERP result

The correct SERP result

You might think I’m nitpicking, but the reality is that this single ad has altered my perception of the quality of Bing’s results. What if I hadn’t added the spaces? I would’ve found that Bing didn’t deliver on its promise to provide me with a leader board, and would’ve left the site with a very poor experience and a negative opinion of Bing.

Small details can have a big impact on perception. Just ask anyone who’s ever worked in User Experience. :)

Popularity: 19% [?]

Related posts:

  1. Decrease email unsubscribes by adding frequency option
  2. Image Optimization by BusinessWeek
  3. Breast Cancer Awareness and the NFL

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

Dave T. June 30, 2009 at 1:25 pm

It’s still pretty cool though! the leaderboard at least. What happens when you type in “Chicago Cubs”?
http://www.bing.com/search?q=chicago+cubs&go=&form=QBLH&qs=n

Wow! Pretty cool. Here’s Google’s result.
http://www.google.com/search?q=chicago+cubs&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

platypusrex256 September 17, 2009 at 3:20 pm

just looking for examples of razorfish’s adverts for bing and found your blog post here.

interesting.

Roy September 27, 2009 at 7:30 am

Give Bing some time. It will slowly emerge as a strong competitor to Google. It’s already giving Yahoo, and Ask.com a run for their money. When you’ve got a big company like Microsoft behind it, it’s difficult for much to go wrong.

Leave a Comment

Comment moderation is enabled. Your comment may take some time to appear.

Previous post: Decrease email unsubscribes by adding frequency option

Next post: Twitter Tip – Saving Links for Later