iRack

I recently came across a viral video via WOM, and I am going to have to agree with my classmate Caitlins take on how viral videos can have an affect on the political scene. Although this particular one is just a madTV skit, it did create quite the buzz, as a professor of mine showed it to us class. The video can be seen on... you guessed it... YouTube. The skit parodies the war going on in Iraq and Iran as well as the growing conglomeration Apple has on there "i" family.

With the increasing trend of posting videos on the internet I would find it hard to believe that political candidates shouldn't be concerned with this growing trend enough to get involved in it and take full advantage. Vh1 has had this show out called Web Junk 2.0 which basically consists of people at Vh1 searching the web for funny viral videos and showing them on national television. If you watch the show you will see that most of it is of political faces like Bush, Clinton, Condoleeza - the usual victems of comical videos and skits.

With viral videos in full force, at the center of political parodies is a website Jibjab.com which started back when Bush and Kerry were presidential candidates in '04. Check it out - look around, there pretty funny.



However, I got to give them some credit, politicians are starting to become more savvy with this marketing tactic and for them it can show a side that cannot be seen in presidential speeches. I wouldn't be suprised if we see a lot more of it in the upcoming presidential election next year.

Googles at it again!

Google teams up with another company, this time its Intel. The partnership or online marketing pact was announced Wednesday April 25th and will officially launch on the 29th. I guess the goal in this partnership is to create a virtual storefront that will allow makers, sellers and resellers of Intel based laptops to use Googles tools to track/optimize their marketing and ad efforts.

Its mostly used for B2B efforts, but the new virtual storefront "allow select resellers to place print ads, order merchandise and customize collateral marketing material with their company name or logo alongside Intel branding."

Im impressed with the idea. These two teaming up are a perfect example of how the future of online marketing could perform. In the article
Intel, Google Online Marketing Pact Gets Thumbs-Up From Partners they outlined the benefits of the program for smaller system builders. They are excited about the new initiative because it will allow them to more effectively target niches that werent necessarily available for them to reach with just search engine advertising.

Another point highlighted is that the new program uses Intel's co-marketing funds, instead of companys paying out-of-pocket and Intel having to reimburse. Allowing for a quicker and more effective system.

I think this partnership is a great idea. They made a good argument that using just Google adwords in their marketing effort brings in consumers who are looking for a cheap home computer. And that is not necessarily the clientelle that they are aiming for. I think that with a more specialized online storefront Intel and partners will see increased optimization in their efforts.

Google is getting creative and getting ahead... By jumping on opportunities like this they are putting themselves on top when it comes to potential advertising before others like Yahoo.

Someone lose their keys?

Nissan in an attempt to start a viral, word of mouth campaign, purposely "lost" 200,000 keyrings consisting of three keys and two tags. The keys were meant to look like a car and house keys and the tags were meant to look like speedpass gas tagsdirected finders to websites, one being nissanusa.com and the other to redeem prizes from the keys. The campaign was to promote the new Altima's push-button ignition system. Suprisingly the campaign only cost the True Agency in Los Angeles a sum of $100,000. But was it worth it?



I researched other people blogs and checked to see what the New York Times had to say about it. The keys that were left in bars, concert halls, and other public facilities had different responses. The New York Times writer Daniel Gilbert saw it as imoral playing off of peoples unconsious behavior towards kindness. Saying it was similar to people on the street pretending to be poor for money and driving off in a sports car, or a bank releasing 1,000's of puppies with tags that say "Thanks for checking. And speaking of checking, our bank charges no monthly fees!" He may be a professor of psychology at Harvard but I think his image of the campaign is a little extreme.

Another negative point of view came from a fellow blogger. This Post that Andy Webber posted supports the idea that wouldnt this just be considered littering? I mean I guess I can see where he is coming from if no one picks the keys up. But based on Gilbers proposal, people are compelled to do nice things. There are many ways to look at this campaign but from a marketing perspective I think its a neat idea!

The writers at Winding Road News Forum
saw it as a great concept, despite it was advertising a keyless ignition they were not fans of. I would have to tend to agree with them, this cheap campaign definetly got people talking. However, I dont see how this would lead people to buy the car. I dont see how they could accurately target their market with this campaign, and I would think they would loose money on it. Even though it only cost them $100,000 to lose the keys the keys involved prices like $15 gasoline cards and magazine subscription. But what does this have to do with buying a Nissan?

I mean I get the whole idea, but we'll just have to see if their sales do in fact go up!

I prefer TRYVERTISING over advertising any day!

Nowadays no one really wants to take the risk of buying something and not liking it - it's a waste of time and money. Well theres this website trendwatching that shows different companies that are trying this new marketing effort called tryvertising. Its a neat concept that takes away the whole guessing, trial and error procedure out of buying.

It looks like a win-win situation. Sure alternatives to mass advertising have already been initiated, like word of mouth and search based advertising, but this new "tryvertising" lets consumers become familiar with the product by actually using it. It's a method that is being used already but in a more effective/ efficient manner. The old method is samples given like perfume, makeup and shampoo in magazine and free items sent right to your house. This is innefective because whos to say the consumer actually uses it, and that they are the target audience who would actually buy it.



The new way is the strategic way in which the products are being integrated. There being integrated into bars, hotels, universities, waiting rooms and many others. For example the high end hotel the Ritz Carlton and Mercedes Benz teamed up and guests who stay at the hotel get use of the CLS500. So far the 3 year old campaign has proved a success since the website shares dozens of guests chose to buy the car based on their experience with the integrated test drives. Another example of how hotels have used this idea is ETAP hotels who have hooked up with IKEA and use only their products to furnish the hotels.

Check out the website for a ton of other examples - all are really neat and fun ideas!

New and dedicated to marketing!

So i discovered today a new inspiration that I'm really excited about especially for my blog topic. Adage.com was advertising a new website Delivermagazine.com after the in print magazine and its dedicated to all things marketing. So far the site looks awesome and is full of whats hot and new in the marketing world, case studies and columns!

From the press release showed on the website...

"The magazine, with big, bold graphics and a distinctive editorial point of view, uses case studies, third-party columns and opinionated commentary to convey the best practices, trends, research, ideas and actionable strategies that constitute the leading-edge of direct marketing theory and practice.

delivermagazine.com will be updated weekly with a mix of Web-exclusive content, online surveys, ways for readers to interact with the Website and community-serving elements. The site will enable real-time, reader engagement by RSS feeds that automatically alert subscribers to new, online content."

SOUNDS GOOD TO ME - check it out!!!

Anti-Google Guerilla Movement

To go along with my previous post, I recently stumbled upon a website started by the firm Profero, the marketing firm that holds the accounts of Yahoo and Ask, to bring down the monopoly that google has on searches. The website is titled information revolution, to go along with the guerilla movement that is taking place around the UK. Below is a picture that was taken on a UK website of one of the posters to support the movement.



I find the poster pretty ineffective however because its hard to know A) who had made it and B) who they are referring to. I would otherwise consider it a successful strategy. Its similar to the strategy that apple had towards the anti-PC campaign.

However, I dont think this campaign will increase either of the search engines popularity since the poster seems almost sneeky because neither one of them take credit for the campaign. Unless you visit the teeny tiny website presented at the bottom of the poster were you would see that Ask takes the credit with their logo in the bottom right hand corner.

I dont see this campaign coming to the US any time soon, but im curious to see how this turns out in the UK. The website Information-revolution.org has a daily feed and informational part of the website so I will check it cause I find the movement pretty interesting.

Compulsive spending??

Just because google had the money to buy YouTube, should it really have bought it? I recently did a paper in Marketing on the Internet for the viral video site YouTube. It became a huge success by 2006 and then was purchased by the king of search sites, google for a lump sum of about $1.6 billion. Sure we all partake in a little retail therapy and have compulsive spending habits, but it just might have been a waste of money. Just because google had the power to buy it doesnt mean that it necessarily should have.

As of yet Google has not discovered a way to make money off of the video sharing site. Nor has it discovered an effective method of self-policing for copyrighted material. Which in the end may cost google more money then there making off of it considering thy are being sued by the media giant Viacom for $1 billion. I'm speculating that they are just making a point out of the scenerio considering that YouTube is pretty much promoting their content which has since been removed from the site.



AdAge has since the purchase published articles asking the same questions. In there article "Did Google Flush$1.6 Billion Down the YouTube" they wrote "Just six months ago, before the close of Google's $1.65 billion deal for the video-sharing site, these questions would have been unthinkable. But there have been continued stumbles in inking the deals that will get it enough legal content to support a robust ad model, and that's rendered the site's future surprisingly murky. The central question these days is whether a web version of "America's Funniest Home Videos" has anything advertisers actually want..."

The site I visited that had pretty much all articles related to google was Media Wire Daily. I recommend visiting it because theres more problems with google then one would think. The funniest I thought was the article sharing that google must be spoiling their employees because they managed to royally screw up their usual themed logo by forgetting a letter. A pretty careless mistake to put up on the website if you ask me.



But as far as the topic goes on them buying YouTube - In my opinion they should have left a good thing alone.