What happens when you give creative minds a video camera? A one-of-a-kind album launch that brought together up and coming performers with the world renowned band, Weezer -- and separately, 125 exceptional online video talents vying for a place at the Guggenheim Museum. Read on for creative inspiration, as well as critical updates on the Keyword Tool and Bid Simulator, additional holiday planning resources, and details of Google Health’s new look.
Tip of the week
- Being in the holiday spirit (is it really only September?), we'd like to share that the videos from this summer's ThinkHoliday event are now on YouTube. Take a peek for tactics and learnings to help you prepare for this year's holiday shopping season.
- New Keyword Tool Update: We’ve discontinued access to the previous version of the Keyword Tool in favor of the new Keyword Tool. The new version contains a number of additional benefits including Search-based Keyword Tool functionality, flexible search options, and enhanced filtering. It is the default keyword tool in the AdWords interface, and is also accessible outside of AdWords.
- New Bid Simulator Metric: We will soon be adding a new metric to the AdWords Bid Simulator called "estimated top impressions,” representing the estimated number of impressions your ad would have received in the top position above the Google.com search results (vs the right hand side of the page) had you used different bids. For more information, success stories and more, please refer to the Help Center.
- YouTube Homepage & Promoted Videos: Clients big and small can now get their time in the spotlight with ads on the YouTube homepage with Promoted Video Ads. A few days each quarter, we open up the YouTube homepage to Promoted Video advertisers. With homepage exposure of roughly 45 million impressions and 18 million unique visitors a day in the U.S., you and your clients can make a big splash. Be sure to read up on all the ways your ads can show up on the homepage, should the opportunity arise.
- Behind the scenes of Weezer's new album launch: Guest blogger Ben Patterson of DashGo gives us a behind the scenes look at how Weezer creatively used YouTube for its new album launch, and the reach of this campaign.
- Fall line-up for Google TV Ads. Episode 1: Reaching more potential customers: For the next 4 weeks, the TV ads team will be sharing tips and resources. In this week's episode - Generate demand for your brand and drive online actions with Google TV Ads. In conjunction with online campaigns, Google TV Ads enables you to run a highly efficient, fully integrated marketing campaign, reaching your offline audience with ultimate precision. See how Gotham Direct increased traffic to ooVoo.com by 500% with Google TV Ads.
- This Week in Search, 9.17.10 Edition: Check out This Week in Search to see recent enhancements when searching for media, such as director and cast links in movie search results, the Google Beat and more.
- Google Heath, the Power is Yours: As consumers look to take control over their heath, Google Health has become a central place online to store and share medical data. Based on your feedback, we are proud to announce the Google Heath redesign, including an easier-to-use dashboard, more focus on wellness goals and more. We’ve also formed new partnerships with device and mobile apps developers so there’s nothing holding you back!
- Shortlist for YouTube Play announced: Earlier this year we announced YouTube Play, a joint initiative with YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum, in collaboration with HP, to discover and showcase exceptional online video talent. We received 23K submissions from 91 countries, and narrowed the field down to 125, 20 of which will be selected for display at the Guggenheim Museums in NYC, Berlin, Bilbao and Venice from October 22-24, 2010, as well as on the YouTube Play channel. Be sure to check out the shortlist here.
- New security feature for orgs using Google Apps: In order to increase the security of the cloud, we announced a free, two-step verification process for Google Apps Premier, Education and Government Edition users. We'll be rolling this out to all Apps users in the coming months. Visit the Google Enterprise Blog for the complete announcement.
