Social Media Revolution

Pretty fascinating stats. The background music helps too.

Chase

Hello and goodbye: WaMu officially becomes Chase on June 1
Seattlepi.com staff Andrea James wrote my sentiment, “the loss of such a major company has been a blow to Seattle’s civic pride.” It was sad to see the WaMu Tower and WaMu Center getting renamed.

Meanwhile, from the consumer side, the transition has been smooth and painless. Chase has been keeping things fun and easy for all the old WaMu customers. The WaMu accounts are now accessed via Chase website, but all the debit cards, checks, banking centers, ATMs still work exactly the same. The brand transition is so seamless and done so quickly that it is amazing. Chase also continue to push out month-to-month contests/ promotions engaging customers to remain active with the bank. I just got the same offer yesterday as the one I got in March. Time for another new account…? Wouldn’t mind the spare cash

Dave Matthews Band: Big Whiskey And The Groogrux King

There’s been quite a few big Marketing initiatives across industries lately.

One of the ones that I totally ate right up is Dave Matthews Band’s promotion campaign for their new album “Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King.” I have always enjoyed DMB’s music but never took any initiative in following their news (all I had is their “Everyday” album which I inherited from a friend, and that I finally bought tickets to their annual concert at the Gorge Amphitheater after living in Seattle for 5 years). This all started from Pandora, the internet radio that plays what you like. It first appeared as an ad on the side, inviting audience to click through to sample DMB’s new single “Funny The Way It Is” on Pandora radio. Pandora radio subsequently hosted a station that pre-release all the songs in the new album for free for a week. The station also have a few video clips of the Band describing how the album came to be. DMB also have presence in social networking portals like facebook and twitter, where they’d notify their fans of TV appearance and the likes. Additionally, Google recently added an iGoogle showcase where iGoogle homepage of world renowned celebrities and leaders are shared. That’s where I got my Big Whiskey banner theme

As a side note, my fav songs in this album are currently Funny The Way It Is and Why I Am.

TED: David Pogue

Cool new things you can do with your mobile phone

I’m still listening to him but it’s pretty interesting and attention grabbing so far.

Positive PR for SBUX

Fired exec: ‘Starbucks saved my life’

Kudos to PR at Starbucks. After many sad news about layoffs at Starbucks (and all the big corporations alike), there’s an article on CNN singing praises for hiring an ex-advertising executive after he lost his six-figured salary job. It helps put a much positive spin to Starbucks’ corporate image as well as the economic downturn we are going through.

Lucky to have a job at times like these.