Oh My God! The OMG abbreviation just doesn’t express enough. Yahoo!’s new $100 million advertising campaign is off with a big bang. The ‘Anthem’ TV commercial is aspirational, global and human. Brand advertising doesn’t get much better than this commercial, except perhaps for Yahoo’s new “It’s Y!ou” brand logo.
TechFlash’s Todd Bishop and I disagree about what constitutes an ad. I ask you which of us is right. The disagreement started over Todd’s post “Windows Ads, Finally Cool?” He reports about some Windows 7 videos that popped up online a few days ago.
That’s the question Todd Bishop (accompanied by John Cook) asked people on the streets of Seattle about six months ago. No one seemed to know what was Microsoft’s search engine (At that time is was Windows Live). But the two TechFlash reporters asked again yesterday afternoon in front of Seattle Public Library. The results were surprisingly different.
Kylie is back! Everyone’s favorite Windows Photo Gallery youngster pushes Windows 7. (Say, is she a first grader now?) Kylie kicks off what the YouTube version of the commercial calls the “Good News” advertising campaign.
“What’s more popular than ‘Roller Babies’?,” Advertising Age asks. “The world’s largest Slip ‘n Slide. Microsoft’s ‘Megawoosh’ campaign has successfully displaced Evian at the top of the Viral Video Chart, with almost 2.3 million views.”
Is there some relationship between razorfish and stingrays? About the time I started to blog about Microsoft selling digital ad agency Razorfish to Publicis Groupe, a phone call came that a stingray had stung my daughter. So I raced north to Del Mar beach, where the wonderful lifeguards cared for my wounded 15 year-old. We’re back home, and I am, finally, ready to offer my intrusive opinion about Microsoft’s sale.
I was wrong. Any marketing isn’t necessarily better than none. Microsoft’s “Browsing for the Better” campaign is just weird. I like the download Internet Explorer 8 and Microsoft will donate eight meals to the hungry concept. But the Better Browsing videos are creepy.
