Bing Buzz Had Users Searching For a Site That Did Not Exist…Yet!

There have been some interesting tactics to raise awareness for a product…like flash mobbing (Truth Campaigns) — But this time Bing.com (Microsoft’s newest search engine) has caused quite a stir.  Last week, Mircosoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced his companies latest site, Bing.  It was an instant hit amongst Internet goers — Bing was the subject of 1,500 news stories, spent almost a full day on Twitter’s trending-topics list and, per Nielsen Online, accounted for 0.23% of all blog conversations that day.

However, users ran into a problem…The page did not exist! Many people were greeted by the phrase “Coming soon,” — and a three-minute video trailer outlining some of the search engine’s highlights.  This may be an unusual way to build a buzz (a tricky one at that), but the numbers proved it was a success.  According to Compete, launch day Bing.com totaled 0.13% of all people on the internet on May 28. The day before launch, it was seen by 0.009% of all people online and by 0.017% two days before launch.

But that’s not the final push for Bing.  Adage.com reported that Microsoft is planning to spend a whopping $80 to $100 million in advertisement from JWT!

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