Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Bing Marketing Dollars at Work: Farewell, Michael Jackson

Where is Microsoft (MSFT) spending its $100 million in marketing for its new Bing search service?

Well, here’s a photo that was forwarded to me showing an advertisement on top of a taxi in Manhattan of a goodbye message from Bing, as well as GE (GE) entertainment unit NBC, to the late pop legend, Michael Jackson.

It was a joint effort from Bing and NBC, said a Microsoft source. The software giant and NBC have a strong partnership surrounding the launch the search service.

Done by Show Media, which specializes in this form of advertising, the text–with a picture from Jackson’s “Thriller” album–reads: “We will miss you Michael.”

Presumably, enough of a condolence to get fans to search about him on Bing–instead of on Google (GOOG) or Yahoo (YHOO)–and get news updates from NBC’s many media outlets.

Jackson’s sudden death last week caused a massive surge of activity all over the Web, including at search engines.

Here’s the taxi-topper image (click on it to make it larger):

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First the NSA came for, well, jeez pretty much everybody’s data at this point, and I said nothing because wait how does this joke work

— Parker Higgins via Twitter