weBranding » Advertising

Bing Leverages Colbert For Promo

Tommy — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:47:44 +0000

On the June 7 episode of The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, Microsoft’s search engine—whoops, “search delivery system” Bing—had one of the better in-show promotions I’ve seen in a long time. Basically each time Stephen Colbert said “Bing” Microsoft would donate $2,500 to cleanup and relief efforts in the Gulf Coast. Stephen—and guests James Carville and Jonathan Alter—did so approximately 40 times, amounting to a $100,000 donation to the Gulf of America Fund, a partnership between the host and the Baton Rouge Area Foundation.

A Microsoft Spokesperson told Marketing News Daily:

We’re always looking for ways to promote Bing to build brand awareness. We approached Colbert about the idea and worked with the show to make it happen. We thought it would be an innovative branded entertainment campaign, where we could do something good at the same time. We gave Colbert all leeway to execute the promotion. Colbert and his writers had all final say regarding when, where and how Bing was mentioned during the show—and getting zinged by Colbert is a rite of passage as far as we’re concerned.

And Stephen did mock them a few times, including when the said, Bing is a great Web site for doing Internet searches. I know that because I Googled it.” But to a large extent that is what made this promotion so successful. The Colbert Report might have the best writers on television and almost every time “Bing” was said it was funny and not forced. Plus, The Colbert Report hits what I can only assume is Microsoft’s core target audience. Young adults, 18-32.

Twitter Bans Third-Party Ads

Tommy — Fri, 28 May 2010 16:58:20 +0000

Twitter has just announced that they are banning third-party ad networks from using the Twitter API to insert ads into a user’s stream.

“Why are we prohibiting these kinds of ads? First, third party ad networks are not necessarily looking to preserve the unique user experience Twitter has created. They may optimize for either market share or short-term revenue at the expense of the long-term health of the Twitter platform. For example, a third party ad network may seek to maximize ad impressions and click through rates even if it leads to a net decrease in Twitter use due to user dissatisfaction.

I think it is safe to say this is a pretty good business decision on the part of Twitter if they want any control over the quality of the ads being served on their service.

Nike Releases Epic New World Cup Ad

Tommy — Fri, 21 May 2010 20:31:06 +0000

1Q Online Ad Revenue Nears $6B

Tommy — Sun, 16 May 2010 01:12:22 +0000

Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. hit $5.9 billion for Q1 2010, representing a healthy 7.5 percent increase over the same period in ’09, according to numbers recently released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. This is the highest first-quarter revenue level ever.

However, quarterly revenues were much lower than the fourth quarter of ’09, when revenues totaled $6.3 billion. But of course fourth-quarter results are always higher because of increased spending in and around the holiday buying season.

Digital Ad Spending In ’10 To Outpace Print

Tommy — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:08:40 +0000

This pretty darn amazing. Forbes is reporting that for the first time ever, spending on digital advertising will surpass spending on print in 2010.

Of the $368 billion marketers plan to spend this year, 32.5% will go toward digital; 30.3% to print. Digital spending includes e-mail, video advertising, display ads and search marketing. “It’s a watershed moment,” says the study’s lead author, Outsell vice president Chuck Richard.

The Outsell study was developed by collecting data from more than 1,000 US advertisers (both consumer and B2B) in late 2009.