You may not know this about me, but I love Jay-Z…. so much so that I “like” him on Facebook. Because of this, I often get updates regarding his endeavors directly on my news feed. Lately certain notifications have caught my attention, of his other followers uploading random pictures.
On October 18th Bing launched “Decoded Jay-Z with Bing”. Jay-Z placed the pages of his new book, Decoded, across the world to be found by fans using Bing Maps. At the website, you are shown how many pages have been released, located, and decoded. In order to play this game you must follow three steps: Crack the clues, locate the pages & decode the pages on the street. While cracking the clues you use your Jay-Z knowledge as well as the Bing search engine which is located beneath the clue. Locate the pages using Bing maps, and once you have figured out the area you will see a floating page-shaped beacon. After you physically go to the page, you take a picture and upload it to the gallery. First person there is entered to win prizes, such as the unbound copy signed by Jay-Z and tickets to his show in Las Vegas with Coldplay.
For example, Jay-Z wrote on this page about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, so this page was on the roof of the Orpheum theatre in New Orleans. The fan cracked the code by climbing to the roof of the parking lot next door to the theatre.
I think this is an excellent example of combining marketing with search engines, gpa, and social networks. It’s a way not just to create buzz about Jay-Z’s new book, but also bring a new audience into Bing. I know I had never used it until now.
I never use Bing as a search engine, but this was thinking out of the box and a great way to gain publicity for Bing and Jay Z.
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