Quack Quack, AFLAC!

Aflac announced the new voice of its fair-feathered duck friend yesterday. Thirty-six year-old father of three, Daniel McKeague was chosen out of a pool of over 12,500 applications.

Aflac fired comedian Gilbert Gottfried after he tweeted some ill-mannered thoughts about the tsunami in Japan last month. According to Ad Age, Japan is Aflac's largest market, so they were wise to dump the not-so-funny comedian. Shortly after, Aflac launched a campaign titled "Answer the Duck's Call" to find the new voice.

Tom Amico from Kaplan Thaler Group, one of Aflac's agencies, was a bit of a jokester when asked what he was looking for during auditions. "I'm just looking for somebody who makes me laugh, so it's very subjective. And then I hope to impose my subjectivity onto... the American people." But in all seriousness, he said, "We want it to sound similar, but different."

Well, look no further. McKeague's slightly burlier voice is not, in my opinion, too far of a stretch from Gottfried's annoying duck quack.

McKeague is a Minnesota resident and a sales manager of a couple local radio stations, so his voice is already used to a bit of local fame. Below is a video of him receiving the news he is the new voice of the webbed-toed icon.





My favorite part about the video is the fact that CEO Dan Amos, President & COO Paul Amos and Senior VP-CMO Michael Zuna are all hunched around a desk bearing American and Japanese flags. Aflac is sending the right message to their Japanese viewers by telling them that the company, and its new voice, don't support the tweets by Gottfried.

Many people were worrying that no one could replace Gottfried's signature quack, but I think McKeague will do just fine. Want proof? Check out the commercial that aired last night debuting his Aflac quack:

Google's "Like" Button

Last month, Google announced it will be incorporating its own version of the Facebook "like" button- called the "plus one" button. After they failed miserably trying to beat out Facebook and Twitter with their Google Buzz platform, Google will be using the plus-one button to yet again take on these social media empires.

I think the plus-one button will be more successful than Google Buzz, however, because Google is utilizing it for general search engine purposes. Users can use the plus-one button to vote on search results they find useful and then have the opportunity to share this on Google platforms such as Gchat, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Buzz and Twitter.

I was unaware of this last platform being included in the new plus-one voting system and was semi-creeped out when I noticed that one of my Twitter followers had shared the link on her Twitter.

I was Googling the PRSSA National Conference and underneath the link, I noticed my friend (and trustee PRSSA VP for next year) had liked the link as well. Then Google asked me if I was "sarahkilbourne." This really got me considering I wasn't even logged into Twitter at the time!

Sorry the image is a bit pixelated.

In my opinion, this move should work well for Google, not to mention the organizations or businesses who's links are being voted on because consumers always trust word of mouth over any advertising that a company can produce.

Google said they will eventually integrate the plus-one system into their search algorithm so that human votes will have an impact on search ranking. I've heard that companies can pay to have their links show up higher in the results; I'm not sure how true this is, but this new system would overrule that, replacing it with a heavier impact coming from human votes.

In an article appearing on the Ad Age Digital website, Google's Principle Engineer for Search Matt Cutts said, "When someone recommends something, that's a pretty good indicator of quality...We are strongly looking at using this in our rankings."

So far, that's the only plus-one vote I've seen so far, but I'm excited to see it show up more often in search rankings.

Starbucks is Stalking Me

I'm used to being targeted by advertisers on Facebook based on the likes and interest I list on my profile.

I am not, however, used to a) being targeted with personal information on Pandora or b) seen my name appear in the advertising.

Being the studious person I am, I was listening to Pandora yesterday while doing homework. It's pretty annoying when they stop every 20 minutes-- yes, I'm still listening. But it is a smart way to pull the consumers to the advertisements on the page.

Anyways, this is when I noticed a Starbucks cup with my name written on it and an order that was creepily similar to what I sometimes order there.


I'm sure the double tall, extra foam, caramel macchiato order was just a coincidence. But it does make me wonder, because I had to create a YouTube account to upload a video for a marketing project last year and the username includes caramel macchiato (the client was a coffee shop). Pretty big coincidence, huh? But as far as I can tall, there is no direct link between Pandora and YouTube.

Another thing to think about in dealing with consumer-targeted marketing is how far is too far? My Pandora username does not include my name, so Pandora had to have released my personal account information for Starbucks to target me in such a manor. And while giving away my first name is not a big deal, to what lengths are companies going to go to get this information-- or how much information are social media services willing to give away to make money?

The new FTC rules on social media focus on disclosure information, but should they extend regulations to consumer-targeted marketing issues?

Google's April Fools' Prank Turned into Reality

Google is notorious for their April Fools' Day pranks. In the spirit of the tradition last year, the company pulled a switcheroo with the town of Topeka, Kansas after the town's Mayor announced he was changing the name to Google for one month for "fun."

eWeek chronicles Google's pranks from 2000-2010 in this slideshow.

This year, the Institute of Creative Technologies took one of Google's pranks one step further.

Those who use the email service Gmail may have noticed last Thursday bright red text at the top right of the page urging customers to use the new Google Motion technology. One the use clicked to try out the new technology, they received a nice little APRIL FOOLS!

However, the ICT team put the idea into motion using a Microsoft Kinect sensor to control body motions. The technology recognizes basic body motions such as open, reply, thinking ahead and sending off the message. Check out the video on Mashable's site.

I hope Google puts this technology into use!