As I do pretty much every morning, I was reading AdAge.com earlier and found this article on Microsoft’s effort to market Bing.  If you don’t want to read the entire article, the spot for their new engine is below:

As an outspoken critic of Microsoft’s marketing in their fight against Apple (http://bit.ly/1aspFs), I have to say I’m actually a little impressed by this first Bing spot. It’s creative, eye catching (maybe a little too manic at times), and while I’d prefer some more information on what Bing actually does (we’ll see how they focus on that in later spots), I think at the very least this commercial injects Microsoft with some much needed brand attitude and personality.

What I don’t like, though, is their attempt to create their own category. What are the Vegas odds that the term “decision engine” will ever make it’s way into everyday conversation? Because I’ll be first in line to bet against it. It’s not going to happen, no matter how much marketing $$ they throw at it. Anyone remember m-Life, from AT&T? No? Don’t worry – nobody else does, either. This is even worse: “search” is a one-syllable word. “Decision” is three-syllables, and not as comfortable to say.

Microsoft would be better off marketing themselves as some kind of search engine on steroids. If you’re going to run ads squaring off against Google and Yahoo, then take them on in their own space and present a better mousetrap – don’t throw a punch and then hide inside a made-up category. They’ll end up hurting themselves in the end. Play it out: they’ve got a great new product, but ultimately have to give up on the “decision engine” concept because the term’s simply not catching on. So then what? They’re just a search engine line everyone else, and consumers have no reason to think they’ve got anything unique to offer. Why set yourself up that way when there’s no need to?