“Bing It On” Challenge a Major Success, says Microsoft
A little under a month ago, Microsoft issued an aggressive challenge to search engine users everywhere in the form of “Bing it On”, a promotion that asked individuals to compare the search results provided by Bing vs. the search results provided by Google for the same queries to determine which ones were better.
According to a post published yesterday on the official Bing Search Blog, the Microsoft “Bing it On” challenge was a great success in that it convinced many hard-core Google devotees to use Microsoft’s search engine with a higher level of frequency.
Although there is may be little doubt that Google will remain king of the search engine for the foreseeable future, there is also no doubt that the Microsoft “Bing it On” challenge was a successful marketing promotion.
Interesting Statistics from the “Bing It On” Challenge
To learn more about how people reacted to “Bing It On,” Microsoft hired Answers Research, and independent research company, to use online questionnaires to survey just over 4,700 individuals who took Microsoft’s challenge. The survey revealed some interesting statistics:
- 64% were “surprised by the quality of Bing’s web search results”
- Over 50% said their “impression of Bing improved” after seeing its search results directly alongside those of Google
- 33% of those who said they primarily used Google mentioned that they’d “use Bing more often” after completing the “Bing It On” Challenge
- 17% of those who preferred Bing to Google said that the Challenge “revealed flaws in Google’s results”
Keeping Expectations Realistic
Microsoft understands that one promotion won’t be enough to suddenly take over Google’s huge slice of overall search market share, admitting that “the ‘Google Habit’ is strong in many people and habits don’t change overnight.”
At the same time, they said they’re working hard to continually improve search results in Bing and create additional distinctions between their search engine and the competition, and that “Bing It On” is only the beginning.
If you have yet to try “Bing It On,” you can join the 5 million individuals who already have by clicking here.