The New York Times asked an expert in online search, Doug Pierce of Blue Fountain Media in New York, to study this question, as well as Penney’s astoundingly strong search-term performance in recent months. What he found suggests that the digital age’s most mundane act, the Google search, often represents layer upon layer of intrigue. And the intrigue starts in the sprawling, subterranean world of “black hat” optimization, the dark art of raising the profile of a Web site with methods that Google considers tantamount to cheating.

via Search Optimization and Its Dirty Little Secrets – NYTimes.com.

The Super Bowl, despite being a decent game this year, is a pretty fascinating marketing event.  Our culture, which will generally go to great lengths to avoid commercials, will, on this one day of the year, pay as much attention to the advertising as they do to the entertainment programming that it’s interrupting.

via GroupOn Fail: How to Measure Super Bowl Success | Point Oh!.

In each case, the cycle of how consumers react to a brand is generally the same, but what’s changing is that the cycle is speeding up. Each time a brand experiences a social-media blunder, the event blows up and moves through the seven stages below faster and faster before the whole thing vanishes in a puff of smoke.

via Kenneth Cole Tweet a Lesson in Stages of Social-Media Sin – Advertising Age.

“The dialogue around Super Bowl ads has changed–it literally used to happen at the water cooler, and now, the minute an amazing ad hits, the Twitter world goes crazy,” says Tor Myhren, chief creative officer of Grey New York. “I personally believe the YouTube view count is the single most important factor in judging the success of a Super Bowl ad.”

via Super Bowl Ad Stories: How to Measure Ad Success in the Digital Age | Fast Company.

A little over three years ago, Hal Curtis, creative director on Wieden+Kennedy’s Coke account, was wracking his brain for an idea for the next Super Bowl spot. “When you start to think about Coca-Cola,” he says, “you start to think, what are settings that have scale, that seem to be in the voice of Coke? Well, it’s a football game, a baseball game, a July Fourth picnic, a parade.” There. Curtis had it: a parade.

via Super Bowl Ad Stories: How a 12-Year-Old Rescued This Coke Ad | Fast Company.