Meet Bing’s New "Hero Ads"

Bing Ads has today announced a way to potentially one-up Google’s Image Banners in Search Listings.

The new ad format, called “Bing Hero Ads,” were shown off at a Bing Ads event at the Microsoft Campus, and are currently visible on a subset of keyword searches conducted within the recently released Windows 8.1.

Hero Ads provide a bold, strongly-branded, task-completion oriented experience for certain branded searches, as you can see by the photos I snapped here for Home Depot, Radio Shack and Disney:

The pilot project is currently limited to searches conducted in Windows 8.1 in the US. No word yet on if this will make it to the Web version of Bing Search. The test is being run with a limited number of big brands. If you don’t see them, it’s because they’re only show up on a subset of branded searches. Organic search listings appear on the next page, which is accessible by swiping the screen.

Why I love Bing Hero Ads

Branded searches have navigational intent – meaning the user is almost always simply trying to navigate to a brand’s website. Companies with strong brands would definitely be interested in providing a better branded experience than a 25-character headline, and the new Hero Ad format delivers user intent, branding and task completion! It’s like a landing page directly in the search results!

What do you think of Bing Hero Ads? Let me know in the comments below.

Hit me up on Twitter:

Follow @larrykim