Microsoft’s latest Bing campaign: jailbait and sick children

Did someone say Crispin Porter + Bogusky? Microsoft’s current online display advertising for search engine Bing has taken to using jailbait and sick children to drive traffic.

The themed campaign focuses on a search term and related image, for example in the ad above, it’s colic. A skyscrapper includes the search term “stomach flu” and features a kid with a green tongue. The jailbait comes into play with lots of underage girls. In one ad for “school” it’s four blonde, very 15-16 year old girls with tight tops and a bit of flesh for good measure as well. In another for celebrities, it’s a blonde again, decidedly skinny, and most definitely youthful.

I get using jailbait as a sale tool, even if it’s a dubious direction to head in (after all, Microsoft isn’t Disney), but screaming babies? kids with green tongues? Those images don’t make me want to use Bing, they actually deliver the opposite response, on that simply says “do not want.”