• by February 2, 2005

Coincidentally, Google announced its quarterly earnings yesterday, the same day Microsoft officially released MSN Search. It will be interesting to see how MSN does with its own search tool and whether the millions it will spend in promotions will get people to use it.

In contrast to Microsoft, Google has spent next to nothing on marketing, relying mostly on word-of-mouth, PR, and viral stunts. But that too, may change as competition from Microsoft and Yahoo! intensifies. We've also heard that Google's casting about for an ad agency.

If Google does decide to spend a significant amount of money on marketing, it's not likely to cut into its bottom line anytime soon. If yesterday's earnings are any indication, the search giant continues to reap the benefits of steady growth in the online advertising market.

Google reported profits increased nearly eightfold, and revenue nearly doubled in the fourth quarter to $1.03 billion from $512 million. Advertising on Google's own Web sites accounted for 51 percent of revenue in the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, yesterday Microsoft pulled the trigger on MSN Search and on the campaign to support it, which, to no one's great surprise, is dominated by online advertising and promotion. In the United States, the campaign, created by McCann-Erickson, San Francisco, along with T3, Austin consists of a major online advertising presence on the MSN network of sites and on MSN.com.

In addition, MSN has a heavy presence on top-ranked sites including Weather.com, ABCNews.com, Reuters.com, CNet.com, and others. The ads encourage people to sample MSN Search for "more precise, more powerful" results. Avenue A, Seattle, handles online media buying, and online media planning is shared by Avenue A and McCann.

Television advertising consists of spots running in the top 10 metro markets and top search markets including San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, New York, and Boston. Microsoft says it's also running TV advertising in local market airtime during the Super Bowl, Grammy Awards, Oscars, and NCAA basketball finals. Overall, MSN says offline advertising supports the online drive. Now isn't that interesting?

The MSN Search campaign is global. It's running in 25 markets in 10 different languages, concurrently. "It's the first time we've had 100 percent universal adoption globally," says Jane Boulware, corporate vice president, MSN Global Marketing. "It's a new direction, it has a different look and feel."

MSN calls it the "Shapes" campaign and it's about delivering precise answers to searchers' questions and inviting searchers to play with MSN Search. In fact, all the ad units are searchable. MSN wants people to try MSN Search to "Find just what you're after." Viral and grassroots marketing are also part of the equation. MSN tapped 42 Entertainment, Seattle, to handle those efforts. Wireless and other forms of out-of-home advertising and promotion are being mulled.