Even Microsoft’s Ad Agency Can’t Get People To Advertise Through Microsoft

The latest social media survey is making the blogosphere rounds this week. This one comes from RazorFish, Microsoft’s former digital ad agency, which the company sold to Publicis Groupe earlier this year. The report is about the way various brands are using the Web and social media to spread their gospel, with various extrapolations about the fundamental nature of the Internet based on a small sample size.

Among the most interesting tidbits, though, are the data from Razorfish’s own clients. (The client list is impressive, with dozens of major brands ranging from Visa to Victoria’s Secret.) In 2008 Razorfish’s clients put 72 percent of their search advertising budgets toward Google ads. Yahoo garnered 22 percent. Razorfish could only convince its clients to funnel 4 percent of their budgets to ads on Microsoft’s live.com search engine. (Live.com has since been replaced by bing.com.) The message is clear: In 2008, Microsoft’s search platform was so bad, its own ad agency couldn’t entice people to advertise on it. (Much of this spending, we should note, took place during the epic Microsoft-Yahoo footsie session of 2008.)

But Microsoft has corrected past mistakes. It inked a search deal with Yahoo and successfully unveiled Bing. Most impressive of all, given our context, was the deal it put together when Publicis bought Razorfish this summer. Along with the $530 million Publicis paid for the ad agency, it also agreed to a five-year initiative of ad placements on Microsoft sites like MSN and Bing. Thus the scarcity of search dollars is bound to be more favorable next year. Only by selling Razorfish did Microsoft ensure Razorfish would push money its way.