Bing Pushes To Build Marketshare Through “Bing It On” For Faster Airport Wifi

I got a surprise recently on my trip through Orange County’s John Wayne Airport. When I tapped into the free wifi there, I was offered a “premium connection speed upgrade” if I took Bing’s Bing It On challenge. It turns out Bing has been doing this in several airports since March.

Bing told me:

Bing began rolling this out in late March and it’s currently being offered in 13 airports.  As you experienced, as an exchange for people taking a few minutes to take the challenge, they receive free, upgraded premium Wi-Fi access while at the airport.

The airports you’ll currently find it at are:

• Boston Logan (BOS)
• Buffalo (BUF)
• Baltimore (BWI)
• Indianapolis (IND)
• Los Angeles (LAX)
• Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP)
• Oakland (OAK)
• Omaha Eppley Airfield (OMA)
• Providence-TF Green (PVD)
• San Diego (SAN)
• San Francisco (SFO)
• Sacramento (SMF)
• John Wayne-Orange County (SNA).

I took the test when I first encountered this, and I guess the speed did feel a little faster. On another trip through the airport, I found that if I agreed to the test then abandoned it, the wifi still worked and seemed as speedy. Shhh, keep that between us.

It’s another in a long-line of interesting ways that Bing has tried to reach out to consumers. I actually found the ads around the pitch for faster wifi, which you can see above, more interesting, with the message that the town that renamed itself “Google” to win Google Fiber prefers Bing, at least according to Bing.

Related Articles

• Bing Offers Own Version Of “Pepsi Challenge” Against Google: “Bing It On”
• This Year, NORAD Tracks Santa With Microsoft & Bing, Not Google
• Google On Bing Attack Ads: “Others Should Focus On Building Good Products”
• Across From Google I/O, Microsoft Runs The “Bing It On” Challenge
• Bing Asking Users To Break Their Google Habit In Latest Bing It On Challenge
• Bing Rises Above 17% Search Market Share As Google Slips [comScore]

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About The Author

Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.