On Wednesday, Microsoft announced its new Bing holiday marketing campaign that also serves as an attack on Google. Microsoft claims that Google"s search results, when used for shopping for items, are in fact filled with results paid for by companies rather than objective search engine results.
Now Microsoft has posted up a new commercial that will start running this week on a number of TV networks. Ironically, the commercial was uploaded on Bing"s official YouTube channel, and YouTube is of course owned by Google.
The ad has a holiday theme as a man tries to tell his wife (or girlfriend or sister, we can"t tell) that he bought a new pan to cook some chicken. He says he got the pan for a great price via searching for Google. The woman then brings out a Surface tablet to show the man that Google"s shopping search results may contain some that were paid for.
Then the man"s chicken in the Google Shopping-based pan promptly goes up in flames, which the woman quickly puts out with an extinguisher. Yes, the idea is that this guy both literally and figuratively got "burned" by using Google Shopping. It will be interesting to see if Google comes out with a similar ad to defend itself.
Following news of the "Scroogled" campaign on Wednesday, Google sent out a response saying its search results make it "easier for shoppers to quickly find what they’re looking for," although the company did not directly address Microsoft"s claims.
Source: Bing on YouTube