I Heart You

I Heart You

Oh Saint Valentine, you slay me. A day dedicated to intimate companions expressing their adoration and companionship, what a thoughtful proposition! Sometimes camaraderie is just so cumbersome; V-day is necessary for jaded couples to remind each other, and their selves, of why they are meant to be together. This jovial date also creates a serendipitous bonus for singles: getting all of the couples out of the way so that other singles can be easily spotted…a personal independence day if you will.

With the way it is celebrated today, you would think Valentine’s Day was a brilliant big idea spawned into a societal norm by an advertising agency. I can see it so clearly, a conference room full of suits (perhaps for a jeweler), eyes wide, while the pony tailed t-shirter opines “Love is about commitment. It is about giving. It is about sacrifice! Sacrificing your heart, your soul, your paycheck. Because nothing says I love you, like a box of chocolates and a diamond.” Even if it wasn’t created by advertisers, it is often a favorite point to focus a campaign flight around.

Couldn’t make it to the store in time for a card, flowers, or jewelry? Well, you’re probably out of luck, and a bed tonight. But Google might help mollify the strife with its map your valentine initiative!  Google always knows what’s up, and is proving its expert prowess again with a poignant combination of location and sentiment. This same formula could be imitated for a powerful search engine marketing tactic, by combining geo-targeting, personalization, and location based ads with relevant messages that provoke meaningful memories or induce nostalgia. Think of how much more interested you would be in an ad that showed say, a bicycle, which was displayed with a picture of your favorite park. Or even better, your favorite park as a kid! Okay that is a little creepy, but creepiness is becoming a lot less significant and a lot more ubiquitous nowadays.

– Ken Hurta