Mocrosoft Using Political Tactics to Beat Google

Alex Westerh
aw366209@ohio.edu
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According to Microsoft you are all getting "Scroogled" by the tech giant Google. Microsoft took a page out of the Republican and Democratic playbooks this year when they launched an advertising smear campaign to discredit Google and win over users. 

They have produced six waves of advertisements, all aimed at discrediting Google by pointing out to users how the search engine is collecting your private information. They have produced a variety of ads targeted at Google shopping, search, Gmail and even the Google App store within the past year.

Video courtesy of Youtube.com (Ironic, right?)

 

This campaign is a result of accusations and fears over tech giants using people’s personal information. It also doesn’t hurt Microsoft’s case that Google was accused of wiretapping, and two federal judges agreed to move forward in hearing the case. These claims are widespread, and most should be aware that what they put online is not secret, no matter what that may be.

Tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook have a lot of money riding on your personal information.  Every day more and more advertising dollars being spent are moving from traditional places like print and broadcast to online mediums. The better one of these companies can target their consumer, the more likely a company will choose their services to advertise on. 

This means YOUR personal information is becoming more valuable, and your online privacy will be harder to preserve. 

Prism Scandal

Earlier this year, the scandal of the NSA Prism program was leaked to the world by Edward Snowden, which shed light on all major tech companies sharing private data with the government. Federal agents had direct access to servers of companies such as Microsoft, Twitter, Google and Facebook, among many others. After this news broke, the tech giants acted swiftly to tell their side of the story, but damage had already been done to their reputations. The public cannot possibly trust them with their information, but what other choices do they have? Not many, other than to go offline completely, but is that even possible in today’s world?

Scroogled Campaign

Ok, so we know that all of these companies are guilty of sharing private data in one way or another, but is Microsoft’s “Scroogled” campaign actually working? It depends on whom you ask.

"For Microsoft it's a win," said Jonathan Symonds, executive VP-marketing at Ace Metrix, an ad-effectiveness research firm.

In Ace's evaluation, more than 53 percent of campaign viewers mentioned Google in their responses to the ads they said they look at. With Bing trailing Google search by more than 50 percentage points at the start of the campaign, Mr. Symonds said just getting people to consider Bing over Google was a victory for Microsoft. "Microsoft will happily accept these outcomes."

They are trying to poke into the Google slogan of “Don’t be evil.” While they are making ground in the consideration category, it does not appear that they are actually taking a portion of Google’s business. While Bing did gain a record share of 18 percent of the search market between August and September of this year, their gain came at the expense of Yahoo,according to comScore.

A better campaign

The “Scroogled” campaign comes off as a cheap and dirty attempt at smearing Google’s reputation. If Microsoft wasn’t doing the same exact thing, it could be different, but I do not see this advertising campaign to be effective.

Instead, I think Microsft would be much better off taking this opportunity to truly set themselves apart from the rest of the competition. They should develop policies of how they will protect their user’s information and use their advertising dollars to communicate to the public.

Being truly different is how you stand apart, not by using political smear campaigns.