Cocktail Hour: May 4, 2012

Mark Zuckerberg announced the addition of a “life-saving” feature that allows users to publish their status as an organ donor and Spotify launched a very overdue iPad app. YouTube showed its support of 100 original channels of programming to the tune of $200 million, while at the same time taking away from the world the one-of-a-kind Cat Diddy dance (who comes up with these dance names?) as performed by Kate Upton.

An Aspiration for Integration (No Dead Ends): CP+B’s Matt Walsh declares that advertisers are too focused on creating an emotional connection to brands through storytelling. Marketing in this era must not forget that a customer’s relationship with a brand is a journey where each interaction is an important touch point that should be framed in a way to make the customer’s relationship with the brand only stronger. We need to not only focus on the messaging but also on the experiential aspect of the brand.

Tumblr Starts Selling Ads — But Not All Advertisers Welcome (Venture Beat): Even though Pinterest has become the social media darling of the last six months, Tumblr’s growth (currently there are about 50 billion tumblr blogs) continues to increase. For a platform with more than 50 million blogs, the site has done little to cater to advertisers attracted to the creative and visually appealing micro blogging service. CEO David Karp’s introduction of the high-priced Radar and Spotlight sponsorships shows that the site plans to attract brands willing to invest in making Tumblr a integral part of their content creation and marketing strategies.

Marketers Unprepared for Mobile’s Growing Dominance in Email (Mobile Marketer): Tablet and smartphone owners are increasingly using their mobile devices to open, read and respond to email, but have marketers neglected this increasing user base? Find out the numbers and learn to segment and broadcast based on the subscriber’s preference.

Advertising Your Mobile Apps on Google Just Got a Whole Lot Easier (Search Engine Watch): Google’s AdWords brings new features to mobile advertising by introducing Mobile App Extension, allowing AdWords users to include a link to an Android or iOS application. They’ve also expanded conversion tracking to include downloads from Google Play and upgraded the mobile click-to-download ads to include images, pricing and ratings.

The Power of Negative Reviews (.net Magazine): You’ve heard it before: We don’t want to “do” social media because of what people might say. Well, sister, they’re already saying it, and they are saying it with their friends online as well as through the good ol’ fashioned “talking face-to-face.” Negative comments, posts, blasts and sometimes entire sites can be a deterrent for any brand just stepping into a social media presence, but it’s also an opportunity to regain consumer’s trust and create a human connection. And as always, there are those select few just waiting to see if the brand has the heart to respond and address the issue at hand.

What have you been reading this week?