Bing Ads Feature Winter Sports Athletes Bobby Brown, Kaitlyn Farrington, Kevin Pearce

Microsoft search engine Bing is “changing advertising approaches for the first time since 2009," and the initial ads in the new campaign “will tell stories about young sports stars like Bobby Brown, a freeskier; Kaitlyn Farrington, a half-pipe snowboarder; and Kevin Pearce, the snowboarder who is recovering from a traumatic head injury he received at the end of 2009,” according to Stuart Elliott of the N.Y. TIMES. A campaign that began yesterday will declare, “Bing is for doing.” The "‘ing’ in ‘doing’ is meant to echo the ‘ing’ in ‘Bing.’” Pearce recently began snowboarding again, and “his story is the centerpiece of emotional commercials that he narrates, which conclude with online content found on Bing” with headlines like “Kevin Pearce Back to Boarding.” The new campaign was created by Portland-based Razorfish, Bing’s creative agency. Razorfish Creative Dir Rob Palmer said, “Gen Y is a generation of doers.” Pearce is scheduled “to chat on Twitter on Wednesday, assisting Bing in introducing a hash tag, #doing.” Bing Dir of Brand Entertainment Sean Carver said that the campaign will be “expanded from sports stars into music and entertainment stars” (NYTIMES.com, 1/20).