Any economist will tell you that the world runs on hard work, natural resources and ceaseless innovation. Crafty companies and individuals have discovered that 100% of economists are boring and liars. The world in fact runs on a variety of drugs, broken dreams, and–most important of all–fame. To this end, they have gone out of their way to concoct the most harebrained stunts that rocket them to fame and success. Or infamy and sleaze, but this is pop culture so the line is a fine one.

”Hunting for Bambi”

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In the quest for a PR stunt that would shock, appall and certainly be featured on FOX news, Real Men Outdoor Productions decided to host an “adult paintball” extravaganza. Male participants would go into the arena, shoot as many women as possible, then have the option of…er…”eating” what they killed. In case you can’t see where this is going, the non-PG description is essentially the program was billed as a prostitution ring where first you were allowed to hunt and painfully bruise the hookers.

Just about everyone from women’s groups to conservatives were up in arms over the mixture of prostitution, human cruelty and destroying our childhoods by associating Bambi with sex. The truly ridiculous part of this story is, though Real Men Outdoor Productions initially pitched the concept as a farcical stunt in order to sell pre-existing videos of naked women being hunted by paintballers, society kind of liked the idea and Real Men Outdoor Productions now offers the service for real.

Women on Waves

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In 2001, someone apparently remembered the gambling paradise that is international waters and decided to apply this idea to other less-selfish illegal things. What sort of illegal things? Hows about abortion. The group Women on Waves, which is based in the Netherlands, decided to get a giant ship and sail to Dublin, where abortion is illegal. Once they loaded up the pregnant mothers, they would sail to international waters, where Dutch laws apply on the ship and abortions could be legally performed.

Designed as mostly a publicity stunt to raise awareness of women’s issues, the trip was wildly successful despite uproar from both the Irish and Dutch governments. According to some sources, it was even responsible for shifting public opinion positively in favor of abortion rights. But the crazy thing about international waters is that it’s an area where Women on Waves’ greatest asset (no laws) became its greatest liability. After a successful second voyage to Poland, the Portuguese realized they didn’t have to screw around in these lawless waters and sent a freaking warship out to intercept the yacht.

Cashtomato.com’s Cash Giveaway

You know those hyper-flashy ads for local car dealerships that inevitably have some sort of “I’m GIVING AWAY MONEY” line followed by flashing impact font? Unsurprisingly, these dealerships don’t actually give you money — they first make you buy a car and contract hepatitis C from being within 10 feet of their sales force. This is perhaps an uncharacteristically smart move, as giving out free money often incites riots.

A few years ago, shameless YouTube copy Cashtomato.com decided to take their super-classy name literally, and went with the lazy stunt of giving out cash in bags of tomatoes. While this sounds like all kinds of awesome, Cashtomato was a west-coast company that apparently never had any experience with an actual urban center. As the CEO euphemistically put it, they were overwhelmed by “street people” [read: the homeless] who rioted over the money. So what sort of kings ransom was in these bags that would reduce people to angry rioters? An astounding 29 dollars.

Eichborn Flies

In case you haven’t picked up on this yet, a lot of publicity stunts crash and burn under the weight of their unintended consequences. Most are poorly-conceived, half baked ideas that probably sound so edgy in the board room but don’t exactly pan out in real life. In an idea that falls half into that category and half into the “pretty neat” category, the German publishing house Eichborn (whose logo is a fly) pasted tiny banners to actual flies and released them at the Frankfurt Bookfair.

While this may seem more gross than anything else (not to mention associating your brand with a disgusting insect), Bookfair attendees seemed more charmed with the idea’s whimsy than its vehicle. This is a rare example of a stunt that amused while raising brand awareness. Savor it, because we still have 11 more chances to crush your faith in humanity. Starting with…

The Speidi “Divorce”

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Ah the sacred institution of marriage. To most, it is a holy union filled with love, family and the sacrosanct open bar. To others who take it way too seriously, it is a holy union under imminent attack from buttsex. Still to others with no shame, it is something to be shamelessly manipulated for a few seconds of fame.

Created in 2007 by mad scientists as a vessel for Americans’ excess outrage on slow news days, Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag are well-known for being perhaps the biggest fame whores currently in existence. In 2010 they decided to take this to a new level by filing for divorce. In a testament to how played-out their shtick is, most Americans’ immediate reaction was “I bet they’re doing it for the publicity”, since that is the only reason they had done anything up to that point. Turns out the whole thing was in fact a sham, concocted as a fame and money grab so they could sell a fake-sordid story about the affairs and betrayals that led up to the divorce.

The Olympic Torch

We often think of crazy publicity stunts as being the stuff of modern culture. But there was really no time period immune to grandiose gestures as a means of impressing people without having to actually be better. The Olympic Torch in contrast has, for decades, been a symbol of world unity, of human achievement, of determined perseverance.

Except for that time when it was the symbol of Nazi exceptionalism. Far from being a fixture of the modern games, the torch relay from Athens to the host city wasn’t introduced until the Berlin summer games of 1936. Struggling with one of the most massive inferiority complexes of the 20th century, Hitler was looking for a way to really show the world his Germany’s superiority. While having a team of people run 1,600 miles seems every day to us, back then it was viewed as crazy grandstanding. But like the VW, ethically bankrupt experiments on minorities and jet engines, this Nazi flight of fancy was wildly successful and persists to this day.

Salvador Dali

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Speaking of publicity stunts and fascists, Salvador Dali was perhaps one of the greatest false-hype men in history. His stunts are too numerous to count, running the gamut from employing topless models during gallery showings, to trashing his own art displays to create buzz for his upcoming play. There wasn’t a Dali-related event that Dali wasn’t out doing something ridiculous to promote.

The thing is, Dali was so crazy that it was hard to tell when he was acting, and when he was near death. In one stunt, he entered a lecture flanked by white hounds while dressed in a full old-fashioned diver’s suit. Apparently deciding that oxygen was soooo blase, Dali neglected to make sure there was a way for air to get in to the air-tight suit. As the ambient oxygen in the helmet began to dwindle, Dali started frantically pulling at the helmet which was, at that time, affixed with metal bolts. No one helped him because no one wanted to be the square who fell for Dali’s latest stunt. Dali survived, and repaid the uncaring world by becoming an unapologetic fascist, though biographers are split on whether or not that was just another stunt.

Tung Desem Waringin

As Cashtomato.com proved, giving out cash as a publicity stunt can have particularly riotous results. Indonesian author Tung Desem Waringin decided that violence and desperation weren’t “edgy” enough and decided to add a bit of grinding poverty to the mix. In 2008, this wildly successful author dropped about $10,000 from a plane on to eager fans below. Chaos predictably ensued, with reports of men stealing money from smaller, weaker children

The especially depressing part about this is that Indonesia has a per capita income that hovers around $2,200, give or take. So while $10,000 doesn’t seem like a whole lot to distribute among the presumably thousands of people in attendance, let’s do a little quick math. In the US, the average income is roughly $45,000 which is about 20 times Indonesia. That means that to these desperate people, many of which are living on less than a few dollars a day and struggle to find food and clean water, this man is dropping the equivalent of $200,000 for them to fight over. It’s like the biggest hobo battle ever organized.

The Sex Tape of Paris Hilton (and everyone else)

Remember what Paris Hilton was like before her sex tape was released in 2003? Of course you freaking don’t. She was filthy rich and a frequent presence at swank parties, but no one with an annual income below eight figures knew her. Then her sex tape was released serendipitously right before her TV show The Simple Life was set to begin. Now she’s frequently mentioned in the same breath as famous-for-a-reason people like Britney Spears or Lindsey Lohan.

While there is no clear-cut evidence that the tape was specifically released as a publicity stunt, it was released and perhaps the best moment in her entire career and engendered almost instant fame. It’s such a successful device that every fame whore on the planet is releasing a sex tape now. It’s become something of a rite of passage into a brotherhood of terrible people who don’t realize that they’re famous only because they give us someone to hate.

Oprah Car Giveaway

Oprah Gives away Cars
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Everyone remembers the famous Oprah car giveaway, where every member of the audience walked out with a brand new car and a hefty hidden income tax. But quick quiz: what kind of cars were they? What company made them? Did you ever think twice about maybe going out and buying one?

Of course not, because Oprah very savvily realized that everyone would remember that Oprah gave out free cars, not that those cars were actually Pontiacs donated by GM. So now while this publicity stunt is widely considered to have been a stroke of genius that elevated Oprah to Uber-Deity status, Pontiac recently went out of business. It didn’t help that, at the time, the Pontiacs given out on the show weren’t even available for purchase.

Vodafone Streakers

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There’s a common overused phrase in marketing that says that any publicity is good publicity. This is why companies will produce shocking, offensive ads. It’s not because they’re looking to persuade, but because if their brand is on the tip of everyone’s tongue when you need a widget you’ll think of that widget company and their graphic depictions of widget sodomy. There’s an often-ignored addendum to the “any publicity” maxim that reads something like: “incomprehensible publicity is a waste of time and money you douche”.

International telecom Vodafone decided to ignore this advice, paying streakers to run on-field during an Australia-New Zealand soccer match while wearing the Vodafone logo. What sex, soccer or streaking have to to with telecoms is anyone’s guess. Vodafone endured a slew of negative and generally confused press related to the incident. Some speculate that Vodafone was trying to cast itself as the “hip, edgy” telecom (similar to Virgin), in which case they probably could have picked something that’s not a frequent activity of the drunk, fame hungry and mentally unstable.

JMP Creative Houdini

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Magician Jim McCafferty was trying to get his start-up marketing company off the ground back in 1990. Starting with what he knew, this illusionist decided to stage a stunt where he was tied into a straight jacket and locked in a metal cage 300 feet above the stage. After a certain period of time, the metal cage was supposed to detach from its rigging and plunge to the floor.

McCafferty made it out of the straight jacket in time, but the metal cage malfunctioned and it took several precious minutes to get out. In a scene ripped from a movie, McCafferty emerged just as the cage began to drop. He managed to secure himself into a harness that broke his fall, but not before he sustained ropeburn serious enough to land him in the hospital. Marketing experts are split on whether or not the risk involved in the stunt was worth it, since JMP Creative is now a multi-million dollar business.

However all of this is completely moot in light of McCafferty’s sheer ballsiness. Supposedly, immediately after the stunt (when most people thought the close shave was part of the act) a prospective client came to McCafferty and commented on how amazing the show was. McCafferty, who was being loaded into an ambulance at the time after nearly falling to his death, calmly replied “If you think that was good, imagine what I can do for your brand”.

Balloon Boy

Assuming you are older than the age of two, you remember how in 2009 the country was briefly paralyzed over the plight of little Falcon Heene, who had apparently gotten himself into a giant balloon and was now floating helplessly hundreds of feet in the air. Physicists and people with a functional grip of math and reality, immediately began to question how the weight of a small child could have possibly been supported by that balloon. Eventually it came to light that adorable little Falcon had been hiding in the attic, and there was no reason to panic.

The country went back to work, and the Heene family went on several talk shows to discuss the horrendous worry and turmoil. Then adorable little Falcon ran his mouth on Larry King Live and revealed that the whole thing was a publicity stunt designed to net the family a reality show. In a rare show of clarity, the American public chose to ignore the Heene’s afterward instead of giving them the fame they so desired. Well that’s if you don’t count father Richard Heene’s hilarious “proof” of life on mars.

The Death of Superman

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In the early 90s, comic books were beginning to suffer a painful contraction in readership. All the old standby super-heroes were viewed as too old-fashioned, too stuffy and too garish for the modern, disillusioned 90s audience. Superman especially, as the invincible, impossibly noble paragon of America was difficult for a younger audience to relate to. In the age of Nirvana, Superman just seemed too much like everyone’s parents. Everyone agreed that something needed to be done to reboot to medium.

The solution? Kill Superman. What better way to show everyone that your genre has turned a new, edgy, iconoclastic corner than to kill the most invincible, iconic hero in the world? Originally the proposed publicity stunt was to have Superman marry Lois Lane, but (let’s assume) someone smart told everyone to “Screw that, screw that man” and the Death of Superman was…er born. The important caveat to this was that Superman’s death wasn’t just a callow stunt, it was also done really well, so well in fact that Superman creator Jerry Siegel said that he couldn’t have done it better himself. The media blitz that surrounded Superman’s death, combined with the quality comics at its core, reinvigorated DC comics and successfully converted millions of new readers.

PETA

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If Salvator Dali’s Dada zombie had sex with an out-of-touch political agenda, the resulting bastard child would be PETA’s plethora of publicity stunts. No other organization short of maybe the Westboro Baptist Church has such a rap sheet of ill-conceived, generally confusing and repulsive publicity stunts. Also they all inexplicably seem to feature naked women.

There’s really nowhere to start when talking about PETA’s history in this area. From comparing the slaughter of animals to the Holocaust to wrapping people in meat packages, there’s no end to their stunts that confuse all but those that share their highly specific viewpoint. In light of the fact that PETA stunts don’t really need explanation to be funny, here’s a long list of crazy that probably stands unrivaled: They tried to rename fish as “Sea Kittens”, as if people wouldn’t eat kittens if they were as delicious as Chilean Sea Bass. They put naked girls in cages to protest animal caging. They put naked girls in sandwich boards to protest the treatment of chickens. They put naked girls in lettuce bikinis to hand out (presumably awful) veggie dogs. They handed out comic books to children of people wearing fur, letting them know that “Mommy is a Murderer”. So generally PETA is determined to combat abuse and objectification of animals through…abuse and objectification of humans?

 
In this day and age, someone is always trying to sell you something.  Look around yourself right now; it’s incredibly unlikely there is not an advertisement within arm’s reach. In such a crowded market, it’s no wonder advertisers have tended toward bolder messages and devices in an attempt to break through the average American’s consumption haze.  Then there are those who see “bold” and think “license to be offensive, patronizing, and hopelessly insane”.   
 

Chevy Tahoe

A lot of advertisers have become disillusioned with the whole “doing work” thing, and have instead been outsourcing their advertising to fame-hungry consumers.  Why pay for video editing, actors, and stunt drivers when you can drum up word of mouth and street cred by having someone else make videos for you? This usually isn’t a bad idea and it can generate some ads that are uncharacteristically not terrible. 

While this strategy works well with products that are generally liked, it starts to become treacherous when you ask the tech-savvy, progressive, and “No, F*ck You”  comment-leaving generation to promote the generally-hated SUV.  Unsurprisingly, environmentalists swarmed the contest with entries that romantically described the SUV’s lack of efficiency and environmental harm.  To be fair, it’s hard to tell if these are attacks, or simply stem from the impossibility of finding a good reason for owning an SUV  

IBM PCjr

Fresh off the raging success of their IBM PC, execs were looking for another market to expand their personal computer business into.  Apparently, someone decided to go for “educational computers”, was met with several bored sighs, but then went forward with the idea anyway because they didn’t have anything better to waste money on.  Thus consumers were greeted with the IBM PCjr. 
On the surface, the PCjr doesn’t sound like an especially bad idea.  At the time, schools were just beginning a trend of spending millions of dollars annually on educational computers, and IBM wanted in on the leading edge.  In addition, the PCjr featured a wireless keyboard almost a decade before they became the norm. 

So how did IBM decide to pitch this revolutionary, forward-thinking dream machine?  By inexplicably putting it in the hands of a 1930s silent film star.  Based on Charlie Chaplin’s flailing about with the wireless keyboard, consumers unsurprisingly deduced that the product was ancient and difficult to use. 

PSP

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After having once dominated the gaming industry, Sony struggles mightily in the current generation.  Criticized for an inability to listen to its customers, Sony eventually ditched the “You’ll pay $700 and your firstborn for a console and consider yourself lucky” line and tried to reconnect with their customers through a series of quirky and viral ad campaigns. 

First they paid artists to vandalize several buildings with what they hoped would be interpreted as genuine, organic expressions of love for the PSP.  After bullshit was called multiple times, they decided maybe they would have more luck with racism.  Failing that, they went all out with incoherent ads in subways that encouraged commuters to jump on the tracks and a fake “viral” site that fooled exactly two grandmas in Wisconsin. 

Calvin Klein Jeans

One can only imagine the conversation that went in to the creation of Calvin Klein’s creepy near-porn advertisements. 

“We need something edgy as balls.  What’s edgier than anything in the world?”
“Pedophilia?”
“GREAT IDEA!” 

The videos feature barely-legal models posing on what is obviously supposed to be a 1970s porno set, answering awkward, innuendo-laced questions asked by an off-screen director whose voice makes his pedo-stache all but visible.  

Reebok and 50 cent

There’s a long, storied history of marketers trying to make their product appear more “hip”  and “streetwise” by associating it with popular hip-hop artists.  Usually this consists of an awkward rap and a half-hearted endorsement — in other words, the sort of ad audiences pay absolutely no attention to.  Seeking to avoid this, Reebok recruited 50 cent and made the entire ad about how he was shot nine times. And also has on Reeboks, maybe? 

The ad was pulled after being heavily criticized for glorifying violence in order to sell shoes.  Though thinking that anyone watched the ad and came away with the idea that they should buy shoes instead of that 50 cent was shot nine times is something of a charitable interpretation.   

New Coke

While criticizing the New Coke marketing campaign is like shooting sea bass in a thimble, this nonsensical campaign is simply too good to pass up.  It seems like a tautology, but every marketer will tell you that the first rule of advertising is to “know your customer”.  With such a simple maxim, it’s amazing how so few companies choose to follow it. 

Coke was looking to break in to Pepsi’s greater market share by updating the comparatively bitter Coke’s flavor.  Then, ignoring their own market research, Coke tried to shove the new brand down consumer’s throats through every means possible. 

A strong, vocal minority lambasted the new product and eventually irrevocably tarnished its image.  It didn’t help that Coke decided to pitch their products with the most ridiculous videos of Bill Cosby feverishly rambling about how great New Coke is.  

Crystal Pepsi

You can’t mention New Coke without talking about Crystal Pepsi, a similarly well-conceived but poorly executed product.  Following a popular trend of the 90s, Pepsi decided to revamp their product as a “clear” alternative to the run-of-the-mill colas.  Apparently never having heard of Sprite or 7-Up, Pepsi created a sexy marketing campaign that made absolutely no flipping sense and released the product nationwide. 

But in a twist that will shock and amaze the preschoolers in the room, Crystal Pepsi tasted terrible.  Instead of a crisp refreshing drink, consumers were left drinking a thick, syrup mess that taste like sugar water mixed with pond scum.  Pepsi got so caught up in a slick marketing campaign that pitched their product to the latest fads that they forgot to make their soda taste good.  And that’s not snarky commentary either; when asked why the product failed in 2006, Yum Brands Chairman David Novak’s response was essentially “I forgot”.  As he put it, “It would have been nice if I’d made sure the product tasted good.” 

McDonald’s

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Sometimes a company’s ad campaigns make you think that they just start with an edgy concept, then play word association until they pass out or overdose.  In the case of their unfortunate “I’d hit it” ads it seems like they started with the edgy concept “sex,” then corralled a bunch of frat boy interns into the room to fill out the rest.   

You can imagine the backlash when these banner ads hit otherwise wholesome sites that usually featured some harmless McDonald’s ad like “i’m lovin’  it” suddenly found themselves headlined with talk of banging Big Macs.  There’s a fine line between titillating innuendo and tastelessness that serves no purpose other than to be crass.  McDonalds toed this line, then they… hit it, hard.   

Skittles

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Advertising as an industry is a slave to fashion.  Currently, it seems like everyone and their mother who is selling cat figurines has decided that they need to “social market network synergize” their product.  A generally good idea that allows companies to get closer to their customer base, it often fails to take into account the fact that the Internet is full of petulant manchildren. 

When Skittles briefly turned their main page into a search redirect for #skittles on Twitter, internet pranksters all got in on the joke and briefly caused people to think that there was a serious debate about whether Skittles cause cancer.  Though this marketing ploy was eventually praised as a bold move toward transparency and honesty with customers, it goes to show that while companies are often condescending and deceptive toward consumers, in the modern era their customers can be just as terrible back. 
 

Fruity Pebbles

While there are a million and one examples of companies updating their image with hip-hop in an effort to be more “modern” and “urban”, some of these stand out as being of particularly criminal tastelessness.  This was the case in the early 90s when someone at Post got wind of those kids and their rap music and decided to update characters from the stone age with M.C. Hammer’s image.  You say you’re jaded — you say no advertisement can penetrate your air of cynicism?  Well I dare you to watch this video of Barney Rubble rapping and tell me you didn’t cringe and die a little inside.   

Jones Soda

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Some things are edgy because they are cool; some things are edgy because they repulse and revolt.  And much like the McDonald’s “i’d hit it” campaign, Jones made the mistake of thinking that things that disgust people would be a winning combination with things we put in our mouths.  This was the case with their new, “cuh-razy” flavors that included such lip-smacking offerings as “Perspiration” and “Dirt”.   
 

Orville Redenbacher

As a company with a long, traditional history emerging from down-home Indiana, Orville Redenbacher suffers from something of a stodgy, outdated image.  Apparently, a product with a picture of a geriatric on the front doesn’t resonate with today’s with-it generation.  In order to address this, a sane company would ask why it matters if popcorn is considered trendy. A mediocre company would attach their product to an aging hip-hop artist. 

But not Orville Redenbacher.  They went the hopelessly ill-conceived route of resurrecting their founder and having him talk about MP3 players and other things you kids are crazy about.  What deluded lunatic thought they could update a brand by taking the exact symbol of the brand’s outdated nature and place him firmly in the uncanny valley? 

Budweiser

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In 2005, Miller unveiled a clever, if unremarkable, ad campaign that featured referees chastising fans for drinking Bud Light.  The ad featured all the stand-bys of cheap beer advertising: humor, sports, and unverifiable claims about some quality of the beer — in this case, that Miller Lite had more taste.   

Budweiser took issue with being called out as the tasteless light beer (as if that weren’t a redundant statement) and fired back with ads that depicted the referees stealing the Bud Light in order to secretly drink it.  Budweiser’s campaign failed miserably, mainly because by responding to the Miller ads, they gave credence to their rival’s claim that any cheap beer has anything resembling “flavor”.   

McDonalds (again)

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The McDonald’s marketing department clearly has a tenuous grip on things that matter in reality.  Previously, it was their inability to understand that a blatantly sexual campaign wouldn’t go over well when it told you to bang your sandwich.  In this latest iteration, McDonald’s can’t seem to get the whole free giveaway thing right.   

First they began handing out free Hummer toys to children, as if that weren’t the most reviled car brand in America.  McDonald’s freely admitted that they were trying to deliberately manipulate parents through their children.  Then, just to prove the weren’t anywhere close to competent, in 2006 they handed out MP3 players branded with the McDonald’s image.  The players contained 10 free songs that users could obtain by plugging the devices to their computers — at which point the Trojan virus also accidentally contained in the devices was released.   

Blockbuster

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Back in the day (2003), Blockbuster unveiled what seemed like a revolutionary and economically infeasible strategy: no more late fees on their rentals.  The marketing campaign was tremendous, every store featured giant banners, and the airwaves were peppered with ads for the new Blockbuster.  But remember the part about it being economically infeasible?  It still was, but they just never told customers the whole truth. 

At the time, Blockbuster was the rental behemoth, the port of call if you wanted a movie.  The “no late fees” campaign was supposed to cement their place at the top of the market; instead, it most likely killed them.  In reality, customers had a certain period of time after the return date.  If the item wasn’t returned before then, they were charged the whole value of the movie.  If they thereafter returned it, their money was refunded in store credit only.  This campaign’s duplicity ended with several lawsuits and alienating just about every single one of Blockbuster’s customers, leaving them incapable of competing with Netflix.  Blockbuster re-instated late fees recently this year, which coincidentally will probably be the last year most people set foot inside a Blockbuster.

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Infographic by the Pay Per Click Blog

Matt Cutts has officially been launched into space in his rocket, Spam Blaster!  We don’t want to fill this space with a whole lot of words.  We just want to thank those who came up with names for the rocket and those who voted!  What did we learn from this experience?  Well, Matt… you may be incredible at fighting spam… but as you will see, you may want to keep your day job. 

Oh, Adam and Joe… Your hard work and long hours were both AMAZING. Thank you!

When we announced that we were going to launch Matt Cutts into space and asked for your ideas on what we should name the rocket we received many emails asking for specifics on what we were going to do.  So, we had our video pro Adam Perry create this demo video that explains it all a bit further.  It’s well worth the watch… check it out.

Be a part of the experience and share this on your site! We’ve already put together the code for you:

Vote Now For What The Matt Cutts Rocket Should Be Named!

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Barry Schwartz broke the news a few days ago and included this from Yahoo! in his post:

We are committing our resources and efforts to our core areas of focus, including improving the search experience and relevancy of our ads to increase user engagement and ROI for advertisers, and as a result, have decided to exit Search Submit. We have stepped up innovation in Search Marketing, recently rolling out search retargeting, Rich Ads in Search and improved matching technology, and in Consumer Search, with enhancements like the new search results page. These enhancements deliver value, control, innovation and relevance to our advertisers, leading to increased ROI.

Yahoo! will exit Search Submit at the end of 2009. Yahoo! is providing those advertisers affected by the decision a sufficient lead time to assist in the transition. In addition, Yahoo! has recently announced a series of important enhancements to its Search advertising business and will work closely with many Search Submit advertisers to provide them with search solutions that will benefit their businesses.

The Take Away

So what does this mean for business owners and marketers? My advice is to begin paying attention to Bing’s results if you’re concerned about engines other than Google. We believe that you’re going to see Bing’s results when you search on Yahoo! in the coming months.

Well, my boys are rather picky and they weren’t in the mood for anything for dinner. So, I decided to get their attention and tell them that we were going to make the best sandwich EVER.

They got all excited about what it was going to be and will remember it forever. Here’s the video.

The “Toasted Triple Decker Peanut Butter, Jelly and Fruitloop Sandwich” is a remarkable thing for my boys.

What are you going to do with your website that’s remarkable enough to get your potential customers and/or link partners excited about what you have to offer and remember it forever?

Email wasn’t “personal” and would never replace a letter…

Now, you (business owner) don’t think there’s a place for social media in your business? Really? Watch this.

A full list of the statistics from this video can be printed from here.