Google is the touchstone when it comes to brand engagement, online brand management and general world domination. The search engine mega-brand is often looked to by professors, sociologists and advertisers for clues as to what will happen next in world of online marketing and business. Yet for all of Google’s assets, beauty has never been one of them. Lady Google is useful — even beloved — but she isn’t cute. So when recently-anointed CEO Larry Page announced last week that the brand was going to get an image makeover, we wanted more details immediately.

Here’s what we learned: According to Silicon Valley’s top rag for tech dish, MercuryNews.com, the universal redesign will be the first in the company’s 13-year history. The sparse, organized look of Google+, which launched in June, will set the tone for how the rest of the facelift will go down. The same uncluttered look is slowly being integrated into Google products like Documents, Gmail, Calendar and Search.

“Our ultimate ambition is to transform the overall Google experience, making it beautifully simple, almost automagical, as we understand what you want and can deliver it instantly,” Page told Wall Street analysts in a pow wow last week. Clearly, Google is responding to consumers who are becoming more and more obsessed with sharp design.

Whenever a brand changes its “look,” there is always room for concern. Last month’s Facebook makeover and last year’s Gap logo disaster have shown us that when you change things up on consumers, they don’t always love it. But it’s high time for Google to mix it up and get a sleeker image. Readers, what do you think? Is now the hour for Google to go under the knife, or do think the company shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken? Tell us more in the comments section!

We’ve talked a lot about how newsletters can be a cool, content-rich way to spruce up your email marketing. And we here at Brandsplat love newsletters. So much so we even have one of our own and we’ve devoted this week’s list to 5 newsletter tricks, tips and innovations you might have missed!

1.) Grab ‘em with great headlines: There are some email newsletters you just have to open. We can’t resist ones that tease great deals, pimp new products or seduce us with scandal — all in the subject line. Using magnetic copy for our subject lines and headlines is a sure-fire way to get people to open our email newsletters… and maybe even read them!

2.) Tantalizing templates: Great newsletter copy is one thing, but let’s face it — we want it to look pretty, too. Thankfully, there are hundreds of cool, easy-to-load and even free newsletter templates. For the best, click here.

3.) Engage, not enrage: Most of us hate getting business-sponsored email. A recent study according to Mashable found that 91 percent of newsletter subscribers decide later they no longer want the emails. To help prevent this from happening, try giving readers something to respond to in each newsletter, like a trivia question, a contest or a survey that gives them a discount.

4.) Pass the buck: So maybe you’re not the email newsletter writer you thought you’d be. No biggie. Most companies have somebody else write and create these inbox goodies. And we happen to know of some geniuses who could help you.

5.) Get inspired: Not only are there plenty of newsletters that we love, but there a tons of blogs, traditional magazines, art books and more to provide us with ideas for newsletter magic. So get out there and become the newsletter star you were always meant to be!

Every so often, as readers of all things Internet and eternal blog scanners, we are lucky enough to run into a blog wherein the creator of the blog is writing about something they truly love. This is a revolutionary concept, as many blogs read as if the poor soul behind the laptop had a gun pointed to the back of his head while a person in a mask barked orders like, “Blog about Michelle Bachmann or else!” The point is maybe blogging about what we love can translate to more readers, better conversations with our audiences and endless inspiration for blog topics.

A clear case of a blogger in love with what they blog about is Annie from Annie’s Eats. This happy homemaker truly loves baking yumminess in the forms of pies, cakes, and everything you can possibly shove into an oven. Her blog sings with inspiration. And the reader finds themselves saying “ooh… I want to make those cupcakes” even if they’ve never made a cupcake before. While not all of us get to blog about universally-loved things like cupcakes, every writer has the opportunity to infuse his or her work with the passion and zeal that they personally have for life. When that passion is in your blog, readers can tell. Love for your blogging topic can manifest all sorts of wonderful things, from more links to book deals and beyond. Also, by blogging about what we love, there is little risk we’ll run out of things to say. When there is a passions for what we’re blogging about, the topics and inspiration just seem to come with little or no struggle.

In the end, blogs are creative works which require love, passion, interest, fire and thought. Leaving those things out of the equation leaves readers in the cold. So if you’re passionate about massage and your business, then by all means — the world needs a good massage blog and you should be the person to do it. Otherwise, somebody who isn’t passionate about massage could wind up writing blandly on the topic you are in love with and that would just be wrong.

If you need help writing a blog that people will fall in love with, we can help with that too!

It’s Friday… and, really, who actually wants to read something thought-provoking or analyze articles in-depth? Not us, that’s for sure! So we created a special all-awesome-video edition of five things you might have missed. Sit back and enjoy!

1.) Wearing Your Friends on Your Sleeve: We’re fairly confident you didn’t miss the Facebook tattoo story about a woman who allegedly had photos of her 152 friends tattooed on her arm. The whole thing was a big fat lie, and the tattoo in the video was a transfer that washes away in a few weeks. The compelling video, however (which you might have missed), proves that even a hoax can draw in millions of views on YouTube.

2.) The Beer Factory: This visually rad ad for Hahn Superdry is a step in the right direction for beer commercials. Hip and European with a tongue-in-cheek, masculine flair, the ad makes the list for being entertaining — something American beer ads haven’t been able to pull off lately.

3.) Listen to Your Cab Driver: TEDx came up with a smart way to have folks in Latin America listen to their idea-filled conferences: They invited taxi drivers in Buenos Aires to a conference then had the chatty cabbies spread the word as they picked up passengers. As usual, a TEDx video inspires us to watch, listen and learn.

4.) The Power of Clean Compels You: This parody of the Exorcist by Dirt Devil is flat-out the funniest thing we watched this week. You’re welcome.

5.) Don’t Try This at the Bar: Wild Turkey’s “Give ‘em the Bird” campaign makes our list not because of creativity or genius but because flipping off a bartender has to be the most ridiculous and perhaps dangerous suggestion we’ve seen a brand make in a while. Yes, people of the service industry, who already feel abused and unappreciated, will just love being given the finger by tacky whisky-swilling singles.

We were far from surprised when we read yesterday that Apple, according to a new study, is now the world’s most valuable brand. The tech and lifestyle brand crushed Google to reign supreme in the list of the most profitable brands on the planet. Apple reportedly is valued at a jaw-dropping $153.3 billion, while Google falls somewhere in the no small potatoes range of $111.5 billion.

What is surprising is the rest of the list. As we perused the big-name companies, we noticed that many of the brands (although extremely profitable) are not exactly well-loved. Number six on the list, for example, is Marlboro cigarettes. While the brand undoubtedly rakes in massive dough, its overall value to the planet could be questioned. America’s most-used (and most-hated) phone company AT&T and artery clogging specialist McDonald’s also ranked high on top the list. This got us wondering: In order to be a profitable brand, do you need to be unscrupulous as well?

The big business evil empire cliché is a cliché for a reason. Yet we don’t necessarily believe that in order to make big money you have to be a big jerk. Mega-brands like Jet Blue, H&M, Chick-fil-A, Trader Joes and Chipotle are examples of how being well-loved and respected pays off with huge profits. Building a reputation as a nice guy is something that small businesses have relied on for centuries. So it always stands out when a huge company employs friendlier, more personable tactics. With digital engagement and social media, brands who care can reach out to their customers faster than ever before. Pinkberry is one of the large brands that does a great job keeping tabs on their customers on Twitter. The company has been known to give away free yogurt to happy and unhappy customers alike after responding to Tweets.

Walmart, ranked at number 15 on the list, is a brand that is still trying to be liked and to be perceived as likeable. Yet its image problem hasn’t truly gone away, regardless of what a list says or how much money it has brought in. The perception remains that the company is exploitive and a little slimy. So, in the end, maybe a brand’s value is truly subjective.

In a sleepy spring news week with nary a peep of drama from the usual suspects, social media, tech and marketing news has been scarce. Yet we put our digging super powers to work and found 5 things you might have missed!

1. The Branded Mini Movie: If you’ve missed the avalanche of short movies pushed out by brands like BMW, Royal Caribbean and Denny’s lately, you might be the only one. Yet Internet short films top our list because of the surprising resurgence and the even more surprising viewer response. A dramatic infomercial film for The Better Sleep Council starring Shannen Doherty scored big YouTube views and ignited the blogs back in January. Branded mini movies may not be new, but 2011 is likely to be known as the year the genre exploded.
2. J. Crew Gets Edgy: Okay, not really (and just typing those words made us laugh). I mean, J. Crew thinks vanilla is spicy. Nonetheless, the company stirred up an unwanted controversy when it featured creative director Jenna Lyons and her 5-year-old son after a toenail painting session. People with nothing better to do have erupted and called the ad all sorts of ridiculous things. This non-scandal is as stupid as they come but it makes our list because for the first time since the Clintons left the White House, people are actually buzzing about J. Crew.
3. If You Can’t Say Anything Nice… This U.S. Air Force flowchart, courtesy of Social Media Penguin, is a clear reminder of how to respond to negative comments about our products or business online. In short, the military, along with Ghandi and your mom, still believes silence is the strongest action you can take when dealing with haters and their comments.
4. The Just Because Blog: We’ve noticed industry-related blogs and company blogs taking a moment during the week to just blow off steam and post something odd, silly or just plain fun. And you know what? We love it! The Just Because blog provides followers a break from the barrage of news and chatter they get in their newsfeeds all day long. Yes, we want people to follow our ultra-serious and important blog… but we also want our readers to stick around and the Just Because blog is a nice way to encourage that.
5. Not Every Joke is a Hit: Personally, we had a good laugh when we saw the pictures of a billboard promoting AMC’s zombie series The Walking Dead placed cleverly outside a funeral home. But some folks in the UK were not amused. The billboard has been removed and Clear Channel has apologized.

Spring has sprung (or, at the very least, is the process of springing) and with it has come along a cornucopia of candy confections in pastel colors just right for the season. While everybody has his or her own idea of Easter candy perfection (cough, Reese’s Eggs, cough cough), one treat reigns supreme as an indestructible brand that dominates this time of the year: Marshmallow Peeps. The oddly spongy and tooth-achingly sweet chick-shaped candy is omnipresent during Easter and if this season is any indication, Peeps is a brand with a seemingly endless shelf-life.

Peeps sort of re-entered the collective consciousness nearly a decade ago as a “so gross it’s kitschy” kind of brand that hipsters loved to wear on t-shirts and foodies loved to declare a guilty pleasure. The Peeps revival today is in full swing with full-on digital engagement, social media marketing and legions of loyal fans. This year, the perennial Peeps as art theme has been a huge promotional idea across the country. For the fourth year in a row, The Washington Post held a Peeps Diorama Contest wherein readers were asked to submit visual creations that showcased Marshmallow Peeps in artistic settings. The winner was a recreation of the Pixar film Up which turned the candy into the movie’s iconic balloons. Likewise, a gallery in Ohio showcased a Peeps Show which opened last weekend and featured — you guessed it — original works made out of the candy.

All of this chirping about Peeps is nothing but good news for Just Born Candy, the candy conglomerate that manufactures Peeps along with other favorites like Mike and Ike and Hot Tamales. To promote its new line of chocolate-covered and chocolate-dipped Peeps, the company has launched a second Facebook coupon that has some 28,000 candy hounds waiting in anticipation. Retailers are in the middle of an Easter candy boom and are expected rake in nearly $14 billion in Easter related sales this season — a staggering $2 billion of that being from candy alone! That’s a lot of marshmallows served to millions of happy peeps.

We here at Brandsplat are big fans of following the latest online marketing and social media marketing campaigns unleashed by some of the world’s biggest brands. It’s always fascinating to see how a once universally loved and now slightly tarnished brand uses the powers of the Internet to claw its way back to the top. So when Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the 2012 presidential election, all eyes turned to social media as politicos and marketers alike wondered if Obama could once again become an unbeatable brand.

“It Begins with Us” is a new YouTube commercial which dropped this week just in time for the announcement. The “Yes We Can” and “Hope” spirit has washed off a little since his initial bid for the Oval Office in 2010. Instead this video has a realistic “sure things still stink but they could be worse” type of vibe. Rightfully, this early campaign is trying to get the people who voted for him the first time to become mobilized to vote for him again. As the only clear contender in the race on either side of the political coin, Obama’s campaign can’t be judged too harshly and as far as Internet political ads go, this YouTube video is far from offensive or cloying — it’s a little boring.

Like any good brand, Obama hopped right on Facebook the minute his re-election was announced.

“Today, we are filing papers to launch the 2012 campaign. Say that you’re in,” said the President early Monday morning. The message didn’t fall on deaf ears. Obama has more the 18 million followers on the social network and will undoubtedly be remembered as the “social media” president. But things in social media have changed since 2008 so this time the Prez will have to bring his A game to keep up with the increase of followers, the growing number of platforms and the suddenly fickle nature of social media users.

While Obama’s actual website looks a little empty right now, we can be sure that one of the world’s best digital marketers will once again leave no stone unturned when it comes to reelection — even if we can’t be sure he’ll win again.

When you find yourself utterly compelled to stick your finger on your computer screen so a cat in a video can lick it, you’ve clearly fallen victim to some pretty genius viral marketing and brand engagement. That’s what happened when I stumbled upon the Skittles video that sent bloggers into a sugary frenzy. Viral video smash hits like this one, which was released on March 28^th and already has nearly 400,000 views on YouTube, are the modern personification of great, fast ideas. Sure, a cat that virtually licks your finger may not be considered an idea worthy of a peace prize, but you can’t argue with its effectiveness. All of this finger licking got us thinking: When it comes to online marketing, what makes a really great idea and how do we turn our good ideas into great campaigns?

The Internet is full of good ideas — even incredible ones. But the ideas that keep showing up in our newsfeeds are the ones that are timely and unique. Like these Melt Tags. Since last year, this clothing tag that dissolves when you wash your garment for the first time has become a feature favorite of magazine sites, fashion blogs and environmental trend writers. While not a product that will save the world, it is a clever one which will help to reduce the paper wasted to produce clothing tags. Due to the collective interest in the environment and the rise of indie fashion culture, Melt Tags are a great idea that also make for a great story. I guess we could launch into a chicken-egg type of conversation when discussing which comes first — a great product or incredible Internet buzz, but let’s keep it simple. Our brilliant ideas are only brilliant if the world gets to “ooh and aah” over them. So thank goodness for the Internets. With social media campaigns, our own viral video genius (with or without licking cat) and a little do-it-yourself brand engagement, our ideas can be seen and heard.

So, dear readers, I pose this question to you: What’s your brilliant idea and how do you get people to notice it? And just so you know, we help people get their brand, services and brilliant ideas noticed all the time with our incredible services… check ‘em out here!

CBS’s Amazing Race is one of the rare reality shows that you can admit to loving without hanging your head in shame. What’s not to love about teams racing around the globe in hopes of winning big bucks? Now the network, along with longtime sponsor Travelocity, is giving average Joes the opportunity to play the Amazing Race from the comfort of their home computers… and the result is a cool online game that incorporates social media and technology without the bickering teammates.

CBS and Travelocity launched the Amazing Race Around the Worldwide Web on February 22 to coincide with the premiere of the newest season of the show. The contest serves as a type of Internet scavenger hunt where players are asked to complete tasks not unlike those seen on the show. Like the Amazing Race did in its first season, armchair travellers beginning their game in San Francisco completing tasks like finding Ghirardelli Square and the Golden Gate Bridge. Players earn points and can play against Facebook friends or add friends to their team. Trivia questions about travel and the Amazing Race are thrown down during the game to challenge reality TV superfans. This version of the race doesn’t promise a big cash payoff like the live-action version, but it does have a sweet prize of its own fans of the show are sure to love: Travelocity is giving away free hotel stays for a year to a lucky person who reaches the 40^th level of the game.

Popular culture, specifically television, is currently experiencing a shot in the arm thanks to the interactive elements of social media. Sites like Get Glue play off the addictive qualities of television and the chatty nature of social media; by adding a gaming element to the brand interaction, CBS and the like are roping in the Farmville set as well. We’re always down for a good promotional game and have seen small companies playing along with their customers online lately, too. So, dear readers, we’ll turn it over to you: Have you held games/contests for your clients on social media? If so, what were the results? Tell us all about in comments section. Game on!