If you’re in Los Angeles or can get to LA tomorrow, we have plans for you!

SearchFuel and GroupM Search are doing a blitz giveaway today on Twitter, giving four (4) people a free VIP pass to MediaPost’s OMMA Mobile, a one-day event where advertisers and industry leaders come together to talk all things mobile marketing. This pass covers your registration for the event, plus the breakfast and lunch on-site.

But you have to act quickly! OMMA Mobile is tomorrow, Thursday, October 29 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza from 8am til 5:30 or so.

For your chance for a free pass, follow these three simple steps by 3pm CST today:

1. Send a Reply or Direct Message (DM) to @SearchFuel on Twitter
2. Tell us you want to go to OMMA Mobile
   
3. Tell us your company name (Sorry, I do need this. Not for marketing purposes – but when we got these passes I had to agree they’d be used for brand advertisers only, so I need to keep my promise.)
   

We’ll draw 4 names from all of the Tweeps who DM us and I’ll DM you back by 3:30pm CST if you’ve won a pass. From there we’ll connect by email or phone to get you registered.

So why should you see and be seen at OMMA Mobile? For starters, it’s a gathering of more than 200 advertisers and mobile marketing experts which makes for a great day of networking and conversation about where the industry is going. GroupM Search is kicking off the day by hosting the breakfast session, featuring a round table discussion with Google, Microsoft, Joule, Outrider and JumpTap about current challenges and opportunities facing the mobile marketplace today. The day unfolds from there as MediaPost’s mobile columnist Steve Smith emcees the event, and a handful of industry leaders take the stage, including a keynote address by John Zehr, SVP and GM of ESPN Mobile. Other speakers and panelists include Kodak, Paramount, the AP and the Weather Channel, as well as  Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and many more panelists from across multiple areas of mobile expertise.

You can check out the full agenda here.

SO GET TO IT! Pull up your favorite Twitter client and send us a tweet to enter to win your pass to OMMA Mobile. See you in LA.

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This post was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and published in MediaPost’s Search Insider, Friday, September 25, 2009

Every summer, millions of people take time off for the annual family vacation. Families take to planes, trains and automobiles in search of an escape from their day-to-day grind. Yet, during these tough economic times, many families have chosen convenience over destination. Fewer families headed to Disney’s theme parks and more headed to their closest lake or amusement park. Likewise, high-end vacations such as international travel and cruises all saw declines during the past twelve months.

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This post was written by Chris Copeland and published in MediaPost’s Search Insider, Friday, August 28, 2009

The elevator speech.

It’s one of the prerequisites of business development. In the time you can spend with someone on a 30-second ride, how do you describe your business? For established brands, the elevator speech is not so much a speech but a word. For brands like Google, Microsoft, and Apple, you can quickly get from brand name to association in a word.

Let’s play the game together, in your head or on paper.

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Imagine you are the marketing director of a large, respectable corporation. You’ve approved advertising on a few prominent billboards around the city. Then, while taking a restroom break at a shoddy gas station along the highway, you notice the ad you approved for billboards is now gracing the top of a urinal cake. Seems ridiculous, right? Unfortunately (and unbeknownst to many), a similar situation is playing out millions of times each day in search marketing.

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After years of discussion and speculation around a business deal between Microsoft and Yahoo!, an agreement has been reached that strengthens both companies and creates heightened competition against Google. In the deal, Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, will power Yahoo! search on all of Yahoo!’s sites, while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.

Other key highlights of the agreement:

– The deal will become official in 2010, pending regulatory approval, with a term of agreement for 10 years. Full implementation is expected within 24 months following approval.

– Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network.

– The agreement impacts each company’s search business only. The companies will continue to compete in other areas and maintain their own separate display advertising business and sales force, as well as individual web properties, products, email, instant messaging and other aspects of their business.

The companies have set up an informational website with more details about the agreement at: www.choicevalueinnovation.com.

Our Thoughts

As the search marketing strategist for many of the world’s largest advertisers, GroupM Search and its brands welcome this deal and the value it brings to our clients. We’ve always said that competition, scale and innovation are important to large advertisers in any market. Microsoft is back on the map with their innovation and technology developments which have catapulted Bing into a compelling alternative with improved consumer experience and advertiser opportunities. That technology, coupled with the audience and service Yahoo! brings, has the potential to deliver a more relevant search platform with better efficiencies and opportunities for advertisers, as well as increased volume in search queries.

“We like what we’ve seen with the enhancements behind Bing, and know that Yahoo has a terrific structure for agency service within their sales force. If focus continues on development in these areas, then the industry can expect a more competitive marketplace than ever before,” said Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas.

“A 30 percent market share is a giant step forward, and Microsoft is the better positioned company between the two against Google to develop technology. The success of the agreement and growth for the companies will lie in the innovation Microsoft is hinting to with Bing and how that will come to life.”

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