Overpromise. Underdeliver. Wait! Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around?

So Microsoft is abandoning its underwhelming "Decision Engine" positioning for Bing.

Wow. About time!

I always wondered when it would dawn on Bing's top suits that "Decision Engine" was a positioning that existed only in their minds and that it was both, irrelevant and unreal to consumers?

Was it when people continued using Google all the time? Or pehaps when they saw that Google continued to attract zillions of dollars in advertising? Or maybe when they saw that most of Bing's users came from that small group of discontents that always seem to exist in any service who don't like a product because it is too big or too popular?

In any case, I was always puzzled by their insistence on continuing an image that flew on the face of reality.

There are entire product categories where change is either cumbersome (checking accounts) or expensive (mortgage refinancing) or both (getting a new car). In these categories change has a high financial risk: make the wrong decision about a credit card, a mortgage refi or your new car and you are fried. Stuck.

But... search engines? Really? It's even easier than switching channels? You just type www.bing.com and presto! You are in the "Decision Engine"!

So, if you do, what will you see? Well, always the daring explorer, I typed "Things to do in Madrid, Spain" in both, Google and Bing. Here are there results:

Google

Bing

Pretty much the same thing! Even down to the layout.

Some thoughts about the not-that-difficult business of branding:

1. A brand needs to pay off its basic promise to the consumer. 
2. The basic promise needs to be relevant to the consumer.
3. If you are a challenger brand:
1. You need a meaningful difference
2. Which is strong enough to make me invest time, effort and money to switch
3. And you still need to pay it off when I get there

If I worked for Bing, I would certainly do the following:

• Change the layout completely. I really wouldn't want to look like Google.
• Invest money in some kind of welcoming interface or screen that at least gave me the semblance of improving my decision making
• Make a real kick-ass mobile app ("For when decisions just can't wait")
• Make strategic alliances with Universities (where they teach you to think and make decisions)
• Conduct millions of online surveys per year to really understand what consumers liked, didn't like, appreciated, loved, hated, found irresistible and found irreplaceable
• Be realistic in my communications

Start delivering on the promise