Bing Leverages Colbert For Promo
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.
Abbreviated Marketing News Round-up
Display Ads Stimulate Search, Confirms Eyeblaster Study
Open a browser window and type in a URL. It’s simple enough, but more often than not, people rely on search engines to find exactly what they need. And the keyword search terms tell the paid-search ad-serving platform the type of targeted advertisement to present.
But typing a Web site address into the browser and landing on a page might not make the searcher’s intent as apparent as typing a search term into the keyword query box. So, both search and display campaigns must work together to provide marketers the biggest return on investment.
Marketers know this, but apparently most don’t bother to tap into agencies and technologies that allow them to not only measure the benefits, but also connect media allocation to unify campaigns, according to Didit Chief Executive Officer Kevin Lee.
iTunes Breaks 10 Billion Song Downloads
It’s official: Apple has broken the 10 billion song barrier. Just a few minutes ago, Apple’s song download counter hit the mark, something it has been counting down to for the last two weeks.
Apple has been hitting some nice milestones recently. Just last month, Apple’s app store surpassed three billion downloads, a massive feat especially when you consider that iTunes has also been around longer than the app store.
The 10 billion mark is an important reminder of just how powerful Apple has become in the music industry, though. That’s billions in revenue that Apple has generated for the music industry, but also billions that Apple has pocketed for itself. And while digital competitors have popped up, none have come close to Apple’s music dominance.
Yahoo on Wednesday will announce a global partnership with Twitter to integrate real-time search. As part of Yahoo’s Open Strategy to make the Web more open, people will have the ability to update their Twitter status and share content from Yahoo in their Twitter stream.
The integration follows similar moves by Google and Microsoft Bing, as well as Yahoo’s agreement with Facebook in December. The deal allows Facebook users to share content from Yahoo sites with friends, such as comments on Flickr and Yahoo News.
Integrating Facebook and Twitter into Yahoo’s sites allows anyone with a Yahoo ID to post status updates to multiple social networks simultaneously. Being signed into the network also lets Yahoo serve up relevant content specific to each person as they travel across news, sports, finance and other properties.
