Google Photo Shoot for your Local Business
If you have a Google local business listing (now called Google Places), you can take advantage of a Google Photo shoot. Google photographers are currently visiting businesses in select cities in the US. Any business can apply for a photo shoot, and demand will help Google decide where to send their photographers next.
If you haven’t created your Google local listing yet or Google Place, contact us – we can do it for you. For more information on this service call (305) 432-5018.
Experiences, Not Products, Provide Happiness (It’s Science)
Treehugger has a nice post on a recent Cornell University study that found “experiences” to be more rewarding than “products” because of people’s tendencies to evaluate happiness by comparing themselves to others.
According to the study, experiences are so effective at making us happy because we truly “own” them in that they become integrated into our characters and help shape our personalities. Material goods, on the other hand, can really only be “possessed” and rarely become a part of us in any meaningful way. Also, things we buy are subject to material degradation and devaluation, not to mention a gradual lessening in our appreciation for them. In contrast, experiences are transformed into memories, and even bad ones can be appreciated later on down the line.
Creating a distinction between owning and possessing something strikes me as a little vague and semantic, but I like the spirit behind it. Even if the moral of the study isn’t exactly groundbreaking, it is fun to remind ourselves that happiness can’t be bought. Head over to Treehugger for more information.
Google Search Stories Marketing Clips
It’s well known that Google doesn’t do much in the way of marketing around its search service.
While you will catch advertising for the Chrome browser or for Android smartphones on the Web, given Google’s huge 70 percent market share in search, it hardly needs to attract users.
So, then, what is one to make of a series of new videos, which look suspiciously like commercials, that Google (GOOG) launched late last week on its blog and posted on a new channel on YouTube?
Called “Search Stories,” there are a half-dozen of the short videos, some more adorkable than others, which star the main search box.
One thing they have in common is that they have the look and feel of a marketing campaign, with the tag line “Search on.”
They also stress a variety of Google products, such as mapping, video, price comparisons, email and more.
One imagines what pre-Batman Bruce Wayne would look for, complete with ominous music, including search terms such as “coping with loss,” “flexible kevlar” and “gotham city crime statistics.”
Another video, called “Newbie,” has a grandmother searching on “keeping in touch with grandkids” and–in a clever dig at the MySpace and Facebook social networking services–“what is myfacebook,” which gets corrected by Google to “what is facebook.”
Could it be that the $100 million marketing push Microsoft (MSFT) launched for its Bing search service, which seems to be slowly gaining share, is starting to get on the nerves of those Spocks in Silicon Valley?
Here are some of the Google Search Stories videos.
http://www.youtube.com/searchstories
9 Funniest SuperBowl Ads 2009 Countdown
The Superbowl is not only interesting to sports fans but to marketers as well, especially during the commercials. It’s avery well-known American tradition to watch these ads because the big brands and top advertising agencies accross the country get to show their most creative work in advertising. Not everybody can afford a spot during superbowl so we assume these are the best shows. You tube has launch a “vote for your favorite ad” section at AdBlitz Channel for Last’s Sunday SuperBowl 2009 ads.
Below we have embeded Latin Propaganda’s favorite ads, which our team found creative and funny. They are ranked from 9 to 1, so scroll all the way down to see our favorite pick.