View from 30,000 feet

So here is the challenge that marketers must own up to.  An ad campaign, or even marketing buzz, before a product doesn’t make a lot of sense.

The truth is, I am a fan of the guys in Seattle, for not only making solid products, but for making sure that there is always a marketplace, for OS software, Search, Game Consoles, and even browers. These guys are fighting battles on so many fronts, its amazing how well they can deliver solid products that continue to gain or maintain market share.

You see I was in the trenches fighting the browser battle back when Microsoft was waging a full on assault on our fledgling Netscape browser.  Obviously I was only a small infantryman, and I wasn’t even focusing on the core product, but I was still in the trenches, and I was there when we lost and when AOL took control.  So although I was defeated by the mighty Microsoft, I always supported and even worked for their business in some way, whether by owning a PC, an Xbox 360, working at Anderson & Lembke on Microsoft’s advertising, or again at McCann, or even now being at a holding company that owns one of their agencies, I have always been on their team in some way shape or form.  And to be honest they never let me down, even with my iPhone, multiple computers including a Macbook Pro as one of them, the Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 all sitting conected to my TV, and with my search engine as primarily Google.

So when Microsoft started talking about Bing, I got sort of excited, a new way of delivering search, from the guys who know how to fight a technology battle, and they were the underdogs.  You see real innovation in search hasn’t happened since September 4, 1998 (the birth of Google), and although a few have offered interesting evolutions of it: searchme, kartoo, etc, but nothing has really caught on, so evolution had to happen: Bing.

Here is the point of of my post, MSFT announced Bing, the press picked up on it and momentum started to swirl, but the problem was there wasn’t even a tool to explore for consumers, there was a ton of sizzle, but not even a the odor of steak in the oven.  Why?  We live in a world where beta is the new launch, where consumers expect bugs, and products are launched in Open Source, and I also completely understand that when you are launching a product in a marketplace where the competitor is so fierce, and so quick to protect its bread and butter business, not to mention that their six letters are “G” “O” “O” “G” “L” “E”, its very dangerous to do anything in the space before you are even ready to go and have built enough barriers to entry that it would take an army of engineers to stop it. So why start talking about something before we could even sample a broken version of it?

Why announce, hold press court and discuss your product even before anyone can play and experience the brilliance and innovation you created.  Why, leave me with a video about the technology, and a feeling of disappointment. . .

I hate to say it but it sounds like a “teaser campaign” that an ad guy who doesn’t understand that today’s consumer is always-on, always engaged and always ready to consume, connect and communicate with brands and marketers, and wants to be a part of the process, we will forgive, we will support and we will even help you create your product if you only give us a chance (see Boxee an open source video tool). At least give us some social media that allows us to secretly connect with the product in late alpha or early beta so we can get excited.

A teaser campaign, a lot of buzz, and PR, but nothing to touch and feel is way too much sizzle for not even a taste of steak to work in todays consumer driven media landscape.

Anyway, I am looking forward to binging this week, and hope that the sizzle lives up to some form of steak.

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