Google, which started their Favorite Places campaign in July by placing large statues in front of high profile businesses in major cities, is expanding the campaign by sending a Google Maps “We’re a Favorite place” poster to 100,000 of the “most sought out and researched businesses on on Google and Google Maps”. According to Google this number represents less than 1% of the 28 million U.S. businesses and “that our standards for selecting businesses are as selective or more selective than other companies which have run similar initiatives”.
Interestingly, they are including CR codes on the poster so that a Droid or iPhone user can scan the poster and find reviews and (from Google’s perspective) coupons for that business.
If you are one of the favored businesses send me a photo of the sticker! They are apparently within the next week or two. Currently the program in US only (sorry Canada) and will show up in roughly 5,000 US towns and cities. If you weren’t one of thelucky businesses and are curious as to why, here are the criteria that Google is using.
So can we put the poster on our PO boxes?
Comment by Nate (15 comments) — December 7, 2009 @ 10:58 am
now, I wonder what kind’a hack I’d need to crack that top 100k list….for a client I mean…LOL!!
but as a question I wonder how they’ll determine the success of this program and THEN maybe add us google.ca folks too….
hope that happens!
Jim
Comment by Jim Rudnick (164 comments) — December 7, 2009 @ 11:08 am
@Nate
Could idea….you could hang in the Post Office! Kind of like those old wanted posters.
@Jim
Create a bot that uses proxy servers to research a business a lot! But don’t hold your breath on Canada as they have to do Denmark first.
Comment by Mike (2500 comments) — December 7, 2009 @ 11:30 am
I wonder how many Locksmith companies will recieved that
Comment by PureSheer (134 comments) — December 7, 2009 @ 11:54 am
Maybe 100,000 LOL
Comment by PureSheer (134 comments) — December 7, 2009 @ 11:54 am
@Puresheer
They will just be piling up in the Post Offices then.
Comment by Mike (2500 comments) — December 7, 2009 @ 12:02 pm
@Mike
I wish!! You mean- in pizzerias, restaurants & hotels…
Comment by PureSheer (134 comments) — December 7, 2009 @ 12:10 pm
I just love how all this online/offline stuff melts together
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Just looking at the “We’re a Favorite Place on Google” poster that one of my clients just received. I expected it to be bigger. Any great marketing ideas for where to use this? – Brian
Comment by Brian Farr (1 comments) — December 14, 2009 @ 2:26 pm
@Brian
Maybe you can get a newspaper article out of it? You are after all one of only 20 or less in your city.
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