Bing's unusual partnerships uphold theme of "accomplishment"

Bing, Microsoft's search engine, while a distant second player in search to Google, has always adopted a clever and thoughtful approach to its advertising.

The broad communications theme behind the brand seems to revolve around "achievement" or better still "accomplishment" - a theme for which it has adopted the tagline "Bing is for doing".

Who could forget Droga5's joint campaign to promote Bing and Jay-Z's new book "Decoded".  I was actually an amalgamation of 2 briefs (one from Bing and one from Jay Z's publisher) yet in spite of the obvious complexity, was a triumph for both brands.

Fast forward to winter 2012.  American snowboarder Kevin Pearce, nearly killed in a fall more than 14 months ago in Park City Utah, is about to make his return to the slopes. Though he will never represent his country again, his return to the sport is amazing nonethless given the traumatic brain injuries he's had to contend with.

 The whole story is told - with Pearce himself narrating - in a new Bing advertisement.

As AdFreak's Tim Nudd points out, the campaign is nearly perfect but for its timing.  The piece broke on the same week as the tragic death of Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke who, amazingly, fell last week on the very feature which nearly killed Pearce.

Bing is a relatively silent player in the world of search - or perhaps it is just drowned out by the ominipresent Google.  But I think that advertising such as this - and partnerships like the one it struck with Kevin Pearce - could certainly position it as a thinking man's alternative to Google.