by David Heitman, President of The Creative Alliance

It’s been interesting to see how Microsoft’s new search engine Bing is doing. While still a relatively weak competitor to Google, it does have a few things going for it that challenger brands can learn from.

First and foremost is the way Microsoft has branded Bing: “Not just a search engine..it’s the world’s first decision engine.” This is an example of Trout and Ries’s second immutable law of marketing:

If you can’t be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in.

Now whether Bing can really help you make decisions remains to be seen, but the clear differentiation gets your attention and at least makes you want to visit and test drive Bing.

With its $80 million advertising budget, Microsoft is betting it can at least make a big enough dent in Google’s hegemony to earn serious consideration when marketers are putting their paid search budgets together.

Interestingly, Bing seems to be utilizing the formula for branding that we’ve found compelling here at The Creative Alliance:

    uniqueness  +  frequency  +  consistency  =  brand identity

Bing’s differentiation as a “decision engine” (uniqueness) and its $80 million ad budget (frequency) are set in place. So it will be interesting to see if consistency of branding is maintained throughout the search engine wars and the ever-present Microsoft/Yahoo deal-making.

Ultimately, all that Bing really needs to do to be successful is to get a foothold—to be mentioned in the same paid search purchasing conversation as Google by an increasing number of marketers.

While it is unlikely that Google’s dominance will ever be overturned, it is actually losing market share (down 4% from November 2008) to a growing host of competitors around the world. If Bing is to be one of the successful competitors, it will be due in part to its effective use of differentiation as a brand strategy.

by David Heitman, President of The Creative Alliance

In the midst of all the bad economic news and the escalating healthcare debate, one government program seems to be meeting with nearly universal approval: the Cash for Clunkers deal.

One of the reasons this program has gained traction is its verbal simplicity. Marketers take note: if you can describe a major new initiative in three words, and use alliteration in the process, you have a winner on your hands.

Of course it helps if the government is dumping billions of dollars into the program, but it is nonetheless a great coup for consumer and car manufacturer alike.

“Cash for Fill-in-the-Blank” phraseology has been around for a long time, but Cash for Clunkers had not only alliteration on its side, but also perfect timing. When people see Congress is voting on 1,000+ page stimulus bills without bothering to read them, it’s easy to latch on to a simple, memorable phrase that everyone immediately understands. (Well, maybe not everybody: one of my neighbors joyfully told me Obama gave her an extra $4,500 for her old Dodge Durango when she bought a new Toyota.)

Another proof of the marketing success is that Cash for Clunkers, like all good marketing ideas, is generating a wave of knock-offs riffing on the theme. There’s the dentist in Dallas, for example, who is offering “Cash for Chompers” when people trade in their old dentures for a new set. The U.S. Patent Office has received more than a hundred new trademark requests with “Cash for” in the name.

Like all such fads, Cash for Clunkers has a limited shelf life, though you and your grandkids will be paying for it long after this powerful buzz phrase fades from the rear-view mirror.