Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced on Twitter on Saturday that ‘hell has indeed frozen over’ and that Google would run its first TV ad during the Super Bowl last night, called Parisian Love

“We didn’t set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search,” Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in a blog posting yesterday. “Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact. But we liked this video so much, and it’s had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience.”

Google’s decision is being seen as the latest move in their strategy to attract more commercial advertisers and programme makers from TV to YouTube.

Bridgestone has stolen a march on its Super Bowl advertising rivals with a viral teaser nearing one million views, putting it at number three in this week’s viral chart, behind Evian’s Roller Babies and Walmart’s Clown.

Though it was down to one million views this week, Evian’s viral has now clocked up 18 million views since it was released seven months ago, begging the question, if it costs $3 million for a 30 second Super Bowl ad slot reaching 100m TV viewers and $0 for a 60 second viral reaching 18m online, will more marketers do a Pepsi and abandon their Super Bowl slots in the future?

Here’s the Bridgestone teaser:

The dramatic rise in new media use by marketers has been captured by Junta 42 in new research that shows social media use up 500 percent since 2008, with blog and video use more than doubling.

Over the same period, use of email newsletters has declined slightly, along with that of whitepapers and cases studies.

The survey of 259 marketers also found that marketers expect to allocate a third of their budgets to creating content in 2010, up from 11% in 2009 and small businesses spend twice as much on content as large ones do.

IAB research, released yesterday shows that senior marketers believe PR is the first port of call when planning social media campaigns.

In their survey of 80 senior marketers, the IAB found that while social media falls under the marketing umbrella, 33% said that they thought social media to be primarily a PR discipline.

The three other disciplines marketers thought might be involved in social media were customer services (16%), research (12%) and IT (7%).

On the basis of this, the IAB recommends marketers set up social media teams made up of those disciplines they believe should be involved in social media, the make up of which will vary from sector to sector. Read the rest of this entry »

Two weeks after Toyota announced the recall of an estimated 8 million vehicles worldwide due to a sticky accelerator problem, some rear guard PR work has surfaced in the form a video apology from the company’s US President & COO, Jim Lenz.

Two versions have been created, one on a recall  website page, accompanying a formal letter of apology and a longer, stranger version on YouTube that includes promotional clips of Toyota models, zooming photos of the USA HQ and cars being made in the factory, presumably cut from an old corporate video.

Watching Jim Lenz explain that he wouldn’t put his family and friends in a Toyota if they weren’t safe is reminiscent of MP John Gummer feeding that beefburger to his 4 year old daughter at the height of the UK BSE crisis in 1990.

In the US, Toyota’s reaction to the crisis has also been criticised for being too late and too centralised, not allowing local dealers to communicate quickly with their customers or enabling a dialogue online. Toyota’s general Facebook page, which has 70,000 fans, presumably mostly customers, directs enquiries to their static website recall page. Read the rest of this entry »

While the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts  will square up for Super Bowl XLIV on February 6th, Coke and Pepsi are already into a social media skirmish with the 100 million viewer event of the US advertising year as a backdrop.

Pepsi are not advertising for the first time in 23 years at Super Bowl, diverting activity into their Pepsi Refresh campaign, centered around a Facebook organised offline treasure hunt backed with poster and TV tie-ins, aiming to raise $20 million for local charities around the world.

Coke, who launch their social media campaign ‘Live Positively’ on Facebook today, is donating a dollar to Boys & Girls Clubs of America for every invite sent to a friend - up to a maximum of $250,000. Participants are rewarded with a 20 second sneak preview of their one off special ad, featuring the Simpsons, the full version to be played at the Super Bowl. Read the rest of this entry »

So now there’s a Hitler parody ranting at all the other Hitler parodies on YouTube, this meme craze must surely have eaten itself now, unless someone creates a parody of a parody of a parody, but that would be ridiculous..

Although 75 million people had signed up for a Twitter account by the end of 2009, only 17 percent sent even a single Tweet in December ‘09, an all-time low for the micro-blogging service, research from RJMetrics has found.

Overall, in the three years since it began, 40% of Twitter account holders have never sent one Tweet and 80% have sent less than ten.

Despite the high percentage of inactive users, Robert Moore of RJMetrics observed that 17 percent of 75 million people still translates to a large number and the study found “tremendous loyalty and engagement from those Twitter users who stay on the system after their first week.”

Among the study’s other findings: Twitter is currently signing up about 6.2 million new members a month, down from a July 2009 peak of 7.8 million a month and the average Twitter user has 27 followers, down from 42 followers in August 2009.

Sunny Queen eggs of Australia  has launched a PR campaign that takes aim at the British, asking consumers if they should replace the traditional Sunny Queen egg smile with a frown and rename the brand ‘Whinging Pom Eggs’

The campaign created by BCM includes print, online and a Facebook page, along with a spoof news report claiming the British have a ‘whinging gene’.

Leveraging the ‘whinging pom’ stereotype has a history in Australian advertising. M&C Saatchi created the ‘Poms will whinge’ campaign for British Council Scholarships four years ago which was banned by The Advertising Standards Board.

Marketers expect to allocate a third of their budgets to creating content in 2010, up from 11% in 2009, the annual survey from Junta 42 has revealed.

Social media, e-newsletters and blogs remain the top favoured content channels, with mobile the fastest growing segment.

The survey of 259 marketers also found that small businesses spend twice as much on content as large ones do.

Overall, 60% of marketers planned to increase spend on content in 2010.

Related research from Hubspot shows that small business blogging generates 55% more website visitors and 102% more Twitter followers.