Just Bing It!

             

            Gossip Girl is known for their high fashion and their fabulous life in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York. This CW show is known for their blatant product placement. They get all their latest gossip through text message. However, Gossip Girl is starting a new trend, “just Bing it!” Characters are making references to Bing.

            Gossip Girl has a deal with Bing and the show is getting the phrase “Bing it!” out even if some viewers aren’t buying it. Microsoft is pushing their newly revamped search engine Bing pretty hard these days. I have noticed in some of the episodes the characters have been using Bing as their main search engine. In episode 18 season 3, Blair Waldorf’s mother Eleanor uses the phrase “Just Bing it” while in a bout of computer search frustration. It is interesting how this move by Bing is clearly a direct jab at Google and an attempt to turn the word Bing into a verb as Google did. This is a good move for Bing because viewers of Gossip Girl are a very media and advertising aware bunch. The show is continuing to make references to Bing throughout the show. Even Jenny Humphrey uses the Bing browser to foreshadow a pivotal plot point.

            This product placement technique can be referred to Psychoanalytic criticism theory. People don’t realize when they are watching TV shows that they are also being advertised to in sneaky ways. By referring to the Bing search engine, viewers and fans of Gossip Girl will want to use it because most viewers want to be just like the girls in the show. According to Brummett, “The most powerful signs are those that offer people a chance to return to that original state before we knew ourselves to be separate beings” (173). This is used in advertising products and is very successful.

            Gossip Girl has made “Bing it” the new trend and many people are tweeting about it. This product placement technique has gained more users as Gossip Girl characters get really into Bing and even using it as a verb. Now are you going to try to "Bing it"?

Sources: 

Brummett, Barry. "Varieties of Rhetorical Criticism, Part One." Rhetoric in Popular Culture. Third Edition. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, 2011. 145-176. Print.
Schwartz, Josh and Stephanie Savage. Gossip Girl. "The Unblairable Lightness of Being." CW. 2010. Television. 

Sullivan, Danny. "Yes, People Do Say "Bing It"-- Barely." Search Engine Land: Must Read News About Search Marketing & Search Engines. Third Door Media, Inc, 18 May 2010. Web.