OPEN

So, Google Earth is the star of the lastest British Airways TV ad then? So says the Guardian.

Have you seen it? Looks good, doesn’t it? Go on, admit it…

Looks good enough to link or run the ad as a YouTube video on my blog – but there’s nothing there that I can find easily. Brands that have attractive content like this, that have spent significant money on creating it, should make the most of it and make it available to the web.

To be sure punting vids at YouTubers isn’t always a great idea – Coke Zero’s dismal viewing figures for its punk’d-style videos bear witness to that – but "feeding", making it easy for people to share good ad content should become box-ticking standard practice now, like the ad agency remembering to send a press release to the Guardian about how brilliant it’s been.

BA’s marketing’s missed a trick here. So’s Google.  If they had thought about social media optimisation they would have knocked together a page of content for bloggers and helped the news and content travel further and wider.    

Google Earth is also going to be integrated into the BA website so people can take a look at their destination and see where the car rentals etc will be when they land. Very, very clever.

Google Earth isn’t that good for much of the UK, but Microsoft’s Live Local is superb. Just before the Bank Holiday weekend I helped someone find a campsite on it using the satellite imagery and it was truly stunning. The equivalent Google Earth image was less useful than an ordinance survey map – but I expect it will get better.

: : The news prompts Ben Carter to wonder if Google will ever buy TV spots…

: : : Meanwhile Andy Beal is dreaming of the liberal dress-code on beaches in the South of France.