Bing's Girl-Power Ad Is A) Pandering and B) Just Strange

Hey, ladies! C’mere, Microsoft wants to give you a big you-go-girl high five. Oh, but first—have you considered switching to BING?

The above ad has been kicking around for a couple of weeks, but it really hit the big time during the Golden Globes last night. And sure, it’s nice to see a bunch of strong women like Gabby Giffords get props for their accomplishments.

But boy oh boy, is it a head-scratcher. The one-minute ad whiplashes from Malala Yousafzai “who stood up to educate us all” to Margaret Thatcher “for blazing a trail” to Boston marathon bombing survivor Adrianne Haslet-Davis “for vowing to dance again.” It’s a minute of “do you, girl!” affirmation that’s designed to appeal to the broadest slice of consumers possible, rather than actually make some sort of statement of support for gender equality.

Oh, and the backing track is “Brave.” That just really does not seem like the appropriate theme song for Angela Merkel, ~~prime minister~~ chancellor of Germany but hey, who has time for subtleties when you’ve got technology to market?

It’s pretty shitty to co-opt a teenaged education activist who was shot in the head for your stupid also-ran search engine. How did that meeting go? “Hey, boss, what if we try to ride Malala Yousafzai’s coattails to warm popular feeling about Bing?” “Good thinking, Bob! Let’s break for lunch. Subs today?”

“Honestly, we salute you,” the ad concludes. Nice try, but I’m still not going to use Bing.