The answer will be revealed on August 5th, when Bing announces the winner, who will hold title to Bing’s new jingle (or “bingle” as they like to call it) and a $500 AmEx gift card!  Be warned – time is running out…you only have one more week to submit your entry on Bing’s You Tube site!  The contest winner will be picked based on number of views and quality of ratings they get on their video submission.

This is another perfect example of a company attempting to use viral marketing as a new way to market, advertise and connect with prospects and customers.  They are utilizing a creative way to spread conversational buzz about their search engine and with hopes – begin to compete on the same level as the Google giant.

I’m interested to see how well the campaign will be received and picked up by online users.  Check back in early August for a follow up on their campaign performance!

This weekend I received an invitation to open a free Google Voice account. Google Voice (formerly GrandCentral) is currently available by invite only. If you haven’t already heard about it, Google Voice is a service that makes using your current phones much better!

Here’s what it offers:

• A personal phone number that rings all of your existing phones when people call
• All of your voicemail in one inbox with unlimited online storage and free voicemail transcripts sent to your phone and email
• Low-priced international calling to over 200 countries and free SMS
• Other powerful features like the first phone spam filter to protect you from unwanted callers, the ability to ListenIn™ on your voicemail messages while they are being left, conference calling and more

After spending some time tinkering around with it I have to say that in general I am impressed. I can’t wait for Google to launch an official API for Google Voice!

We are all becoming more and more aware every day of how social media, viral marketing and user generated media/content are revolutionizing the advertising world. Unfortunately for some brands like United Airlines and Pizza Hut, they are finding out the hard way. The Dave Carroll/Taylor guitar fiasco has spread like wildfire, thanks to the opportunity given to anyone anywhere to share their voice. This incident should teach brands a valuable lesson with regard to how they handle customer service inquiries. Brands need to be very attentive and sensitive to the fact that everyone is now considered a “marketer,” given this newfound freedom to communicate their experiences and opinions, whether it be good or bad.

According to Ad Week, over three million people in one week viewed the video that Dave Carroll uploaded to YouTube regarding the mishandling of his Taylor guitar. For United Airlines, this translates into a dreadful number of people worldwide that now identify United Airlines as the airline that doesn’t care about the management or handling of your luggage. Considering the latest attitude toward airline companies and the new and increased baggage fees, this is a serious hit to United’s reputation and will demand serious recovery efforts. Terribly news for the airline that the video is now the third search result for the query “United Airlines” on Google.

United has already made a genuine attempt to reconcile with Carroll, and announced via Twitter that they had made a $3,000 donation to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. Good start, but this will need to be followed by further earnest efforts to mend this damaging reputation they’ve acquired.

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/strategy/e3icf26a0dad6f1001638196a9b842c61d2?pn=1

As an avid Google fan, when I started seeing commercials for the new search engine Bing by Microsoft, I can’t say I wasn’t intrigued. The commercials were catchy, the name was different, the site layout appeared to be organized and sophisticated, but all these factors still haven’t been enough to get me to try out the new engine.

Search engines are an important part of the advertising world. What sites are consumers using? What areas of a site have the most traffic flow? Where will we be best able to reach our target audience? Out of the 763 adult Internet users surveyed, about 70% have not changed their search engine activity. It seems to me that although a few people are checking Bing out, our best bet is going to be continuing to use the well-beloved Google search engine.

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This year launched a new product that could potentially replace non-residential toll 411 calls. Google’s new telephone based information service is fast, user-friendly, and best of all, free. It can be accessed by dialing 1-800-GOOG-411. The service lets you search for businesses by voice and will connect you automatically if you so choose. Another convenient option is to get the number sent to you via text message, which includes a map of the business you’ve selected. You can also choose “details” to get the phone number and address, which can also be sent to you via text message.
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