Advertising Age is reporting that a Delaware company is suing Microsoft’s ad agency over ads for Bing that were integrated into the TV show The Philanthropist. I’m not a big prime-time watcher, so this is the first I’ve heard of this:
Commercials for Bing were filmed on-set using actors from the show, which made its debut this summer and stars James Purefoy and Neve Campbell. The Bing-themed ads appeared between the TV programming and regular commercial breaks.
Still unclear: Why this idea is patentable in the first place, or how it’s fundamentally different from the ads that were deeply embedded into old radio shows–I mean, Jack Benny and pals not only discussed Jello every week, but the Benny program was named after the stuff.
[Full discloure: Bing is a Technologizer advertiser.]