Microsoft plans massive campaign for new search site

Microsoft plans massive campaign for new search site San Francisco - Microsoft is planning to spend up to 100 million dollars on a cross-media advertising campaign for its new search product Bing which it hopes can eat into Google's dominant position, the trade magazine Ad Age reported Tuesday.

Microsoft has been the search engine for several months under the name Kumo, and plans to officially release details about it at a technology conference later this week.

Rival Google, meanwhile, spent just 25 million total on advertising for the entire last year, AdAge said.

The new campaign will not denigrate Google by name, but will instead highlight what Microsoft believes are some key advantages its new system enjoys over the category leader, including a navigation pane to move between different types of searches, and a section devoted to related queries.

"They'll focus on planting the idea that today's search engines don't work as well as consumers previously thought by asking them whether search (aka Google) really solves their problems," the magazine wrote.(dpa)