Oh, the horror! Here we go again. It seems the blogosphere - that square, internally mirrored box in which opinionated blowhards spew forth mindless drivel, their commentary ricocheting off the inner wails of the enclosed box for every other blogger to see and respond to while everyone else outside the box ignores it like children in a sandbox at a backyard cookout - is up in arms...up in arms, we say, over...over...wait for it...comments bloggers have made about - and as part of - Microsoft's new "people-ready" slogan.
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Last month, Samsung launched its Upstage Contest which asked people to submit videos of themselves lip syncing Melody Club's Destiny Calling. The judging will begin next week and the lengths to which peole will go to win a video contest is impressive as indicated by these two submissions. Nice work. See them here and here.
It seems book publisher are getting in social media more and more every day. Simon & Shuster has hooked up with online video producer TurnHere to create a collection of videos that showcase the authors behind the publisher's books. The videos will live on a dedicated YouTube page and on a newly-created Book Videos site.
The branded channels feature authors from each of the company's divisions, including Adult, Children's and Audio. Viewers will see two minute feature pieces focusing on the behind-the-scenes stories of authors' lives, the content of their books, and the inspirations for their latest works.
Anytime you stick a stunningly beautiful, hot looking, busty girl in a video and have her coo alluringly into the lens, wide viewership is not far behind and that's exactly what happened with this BarelyPolitical-created video featuring Amber Lee Ettinger, known here as "the Obama Girl," lip syncing the song "I Got A Crush on Obama" written and performed by Temple University student Leah Kaufman who also wrote and sung (but did not appear in) the famed My Box in A Box video. The whole stunt was orchestrated by 32-year-old advertising exec and My Box in A Box creator Ben Relles. So far, the song has achieved 56,000 views on YouTube to date with more sure to come.
In the song, the hottie dances, prances and gushes lustfully about her love for Obama, singing, "I never wanted anybody more than I want you" and "you can Barack me tonight" while giving the camera "the look." It all points to ObamaGirl.com where you can drink in even more of Obama Girl's beauty - including ubiquitous bulging bra shot - and more on the spreading story behind the phenomenon that took Obama campaign officials quite by surprise earlier this week which distanced itself from the movement claiming it had nothing to do with the creation of the video.
- Cynopsis reports ComScore will now begin measuring the reach of widgets, used more and more buy brands as a commercial platform.
- Cynopsis also reports the first major upfront deal has been struck between NBC and Group M. The deal is reported to be between $800 million and $1 billion and was based on live plus three ratings.
- There's a bit of a bitch fight going on between Google and eBaby over Google's courting of unhappy eBay merchants who Google would like to have as Google Checkout customers. In an apparent reaction to that, eBay has pulled all its AdWords advertising
- When NBC's Heroes returns this fall, Nissan will be all over the show like Syler on Hiro with increased product placement and exclusive sponsorship of the season opener.
- Ford Models has hooked up with MySpace for its International Model Search. MySpace will be home to the search for both aspiring models and those who just like to look.
- It seems the iPhone is too big for some over at Apple and they want to make it appear smaller in their ads.
Perhaps to avoid confusion with much larger shop, Portland-based Via, or simply to reflect the agency's model of bringing in outside talent, smaller, lesser-known VIA (Visual Intelligence Agency) from Connecticut is re-branding itself Plaid. In doing so, the agency is launching Brand Aid 2007, a three week summer road tour during which agency personal will hop in a van, travel across the country to visit clients, prospective clients and share the social media love with all while web 2.0ing the whole thing with videos posted on YouTube and other content published on social media style sites such as Twitter. Twitter Tripping. That's a new one.
Rather than going it alone and funding it on it's own - though the agency promise it will take the trip regardless of funding, Plaid is looking for sponsors who, they promise, will reap the benefits of publicity that is sure, they claim, to shower this tour. While we're not so sure about that, we can't fault an agency for going about promotion a bit differently with at least the intent towards using emerging media to do so.
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Quicken Loans and the Cleveland Cavaliers have partnered with George Vlosich who claims to be the "world's greatest etch-a-sketch artist" to produce a video in which Vlosich creates an Etch-A-Sketch portrait of LeBron James. It took Vlosich five hours to create the drawing but don't worry, the video is presented in time-lapse so you can witness the wonder in just three minutes.
So we're guessing this is going to be like The Pussycat Dolls but in movie form. As part of its promotion for the movie How She Moves, Paramount Vantage is conducting a MySpace contest which will award three people an all expenses paid trip to movie set to appear in one of the movie's scenes. Starring...well...no one, the movie follows the story of a girl who, after her sister's death from a drug overdoes, returns home from her sweet private school life to the crime-filled streets of her neighborhood where she takes up competitive step dancing.
Those interested in appearing in the booty-shaking dance-fest have until June 11 to send in their MySpace profile information to the contest's MySpace page. Once chosen and footage of their movie appearance is shot, paramount will place it on the promotional site as well as the profile pages of each of the three winners.
We don't know what's worse; having to slog through no less than eight pages just to read one article or having to endure the annoyance of trying to figure out which ad banner was auto-playing audio so we could turn it off the read the article in peace. All of this on a site that should now better: iMediaConnection.
Anyway, distractions aside, marketing consultant BL Ochman has written a concise, illustrative and educational article about social media, the brands that have excelled at it and the brands that have failed miserably. Citing famed failures such as the Edelman-created fake Wal-Mart blogs, Microsoft's supposed "bribing" pf bloggers with free Vista-equipped laptops and Sony's fake PSP blog, Ochman slaps brands upside the head for their idiocy.
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There are unconfirmed and likely false rumors floating about that Nike will sign a marketing deal with high school pole vaulting sensation Allison Stokke. A few weeks ago, Stokke became the subject of a leering Internet drool fest much to the chagrin of Stokke and her family who felt, first hand, what's it's like to be the object of Internet admiration. While images of Stokke are said to have been circulating for years, it wasn't until an image of her posing her her pole appeared on the sports blog With Leather that things broke loose.
Stokke, 18, is a senior at Newport Harbor high school in Newport Beach, California, set the freshman female pole vaulting record of 12' 8" and now jumps consistently over 13 feet. She's won titles, broken records and earned scholarships but now she's feeling the unfortunate fame of becoming an Internet celebrity. At first, she kept it a secret when friends tipped her her images were beginning to appear all over the Internet. Shortly after that she told her parents and has now considered consulting handlers to deal with all the sudden media attention.
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