Good to see more of that reported $100 million ad budget been used by JWT and Traffik Films. This time they are making a short movie online to help publicise the upcoming launch of the new MS Office 2010 software pack (will be avail 1st quarter 2010, beta available now). Nice cheesy work and cant wait to see how the project develops. For more details and to watch all the videos go to the new dedicated Office 2010 website here. (Found Via the legendary Steve Clayton Blog)

Love this spot that was aired on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Fans of the show were surprised when they realized that there would be an extra two minutes of their favourite show. The two minutes was brought to them by the new decision engine Bing. Bing breaks through search overload so you can get more of what you want. Like The Daily Show. Great work by Microsoft’s new agency JWT New York p.s. Microsoft thank you for Windows 7, have been using it for a couple of months and has given me no headaches, works fast, super easy to use and looks fantastic, is even making some of my Mac friends jealous! congrats guys. To read about great Microsoft innovation in plain English check out Steve Claytons blog, and if you pre-order Windows 7 now you can get it half price !

Nice piece of work by JWT London for HSBC who are the main sponsors of the British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa 2009. The ads are set in South Africa and feature Brian O’Driscoll, Gareth Edwards, Jason Robinson and Gavin Hastings training real Lions. The ads have been slip up into twenty 5-10 second TV clips that are being shown during game breaks. As I’m lucky enough to live in Cape Town I’m off later to watch them live at the stadium, will try remember to take some pictures and put some up if I get any good ones. Should be a great game and am going with this South African legend (Matt Buckland) who unfortunately is a SA supporter ! (Have added some of the Sky Sports ads and another version of the ad above with a a few different scenes below)

On June 3rd Microsoft’s new Bing search engine was officially fully released online. Microsoft are due to spend around $100 million on advertising this new search engine this year alone. The main difference with Bing compared to other search engines is the intuitive way that information for searches are organised. They have included ratings comparisons (for restaurant/hotel etc searches), also it will compare prices for products/flights etc even directing you to savings or telling you the best time to book flight deals. Basically the search results are generally a bit more organically clever and accurate compared to Google. The service in the USA is at present supported by relevant advertising in the side bar similar to Google, however the rest of the world seems to be ad free. Another interesting point is that Microsoft are keen to call Bing a “Decision engine” rather than a search engine. To read up more go to www.decisionengine.com or for more details on the product go to www.discoverbing.com. The only downside is that most of the great features only work well if you are in the USA (as well as the mobile search version), I’m sure in time though the rest of the world will get the same treatment. One feature I thought was very clever is show in the above picture. Bing changes the search picture background every day and displays relevant information for that picture in pop ups. The above image was displayed on D-Day, they showed location specific info relating to the D-Day landing, with links to read up more detail. All the ads have been done by JWT, not the most incredible work but I know how conservative Microsoft like to be with their adverts so good job ! To watch all the Bing ads, visit Bing’s YouTube page here.

Very cringe worthy and pretty brave ad for Wilkinson Sword from JWT, New York. Any ad bold enough to promote a bush, I mean “hair trimmer” that contains the words “All that’s left for me to see are tu-lips on the mound” while a girl sits with a neat shrubbery between her legs deserves at least a mention here ! They also have put up a dedicated website here, (nothing special on the site, is a shame)