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Five months after Microsoft took their decision engine out of beta and launched it upon the world the company is launching it’s first UK TV multimillion-pound advertising campaign to promote Bing and hopefully steal some of the search market share from Google.

The TV adverts will go live on Wednesday 10th March across ITV, Channel 4, Five and a range of other digital channels offered by Sky and Virgin.

The Guardian reports that the £1.3 billion ($2 billion) campaign will run solidly for one month and then be reduced to two-week bursts until mid June.

The ads are based along the tagline “Bing and decide” and feature ordinary people requesting information only to receive nonsensical replies, intended to mirror the often confusing experience encountered with some search engines.
Managing director and vice-president of consumer and online Microsoft UK, Ashley Highfield, said: “The ad campaign brings to life the concept of Bing as a decision engine, a tool that both cuts through the information overload and offers a new search experience. We’re confident that this will help grow our user base.”

"This is a big moment - we are taking out our slingshots and taking on Goliath."

"We are also in a world where people have forgotten there is an alternative search engine."

Microsoft is using this campaign to try and become the second most popular search engine in the UK, after Google. Currently it is in third position, after Yahoo!.

According to Net Market Share’s latest statistics, Bing only accounts for 3.4 per cent of the global search market – whereas Yahoo! accounts for 6.1 per cent. Google outstrips both search engines, accounting for 86 per cent of the global search market.