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Yahoo! Enlists Jewel and Amateur Yodelers for Rebranding Campaign

by Caleb Johnson on October 13, 2009 at 03:30 PM

Grab a pair of earplugs, folks. In what's sure to be a painful and embarrassing marketing ploy, Yahoo! is asking people to record and submit their version of the site's famous yodel as part of a worldwide contest. If your yodel is viewed 1,000 times, it even goes "gold."

In Times Square, celebrity yodelers Jewel and LeAnn Rimes, along with other inexplicable celebs like Randy Jackson, Pete Wentz, and Kimberly Caldwell, gathered Tuesday to kick off the contest by helping a select few amateurs record their yodels in a studio. According to FOX News, if you aren't lucky enough to log studio time with famous musicians, you will be able to stop by the recording kiosks Yahoo! has placed around Times Square. Alternatively, you can make a recording at home using Yahoo!'s Yodel Studio site from now until November 8th.

Between November 8th and 16th, people can vote for their favorite cringe-inducing yodel, with one lucky winner being selected from the U.S., United Kingdom, and India. So what does that winner win, exactly? Well, it's really just that he or she will win, it seems, not only the contest but the hearts of Web geeks everywhere. By encouraging people to make use of social media sites in their campaigns for votes, Yahoo! hopes to re-brand itself with this contest.

If the site is trying to re-brand itself as a fail, then mission accomplished. Don't Yahoo! advertising executives remember Quizno's viral-video failure or 50 Cent's attempt at a social networking site? [From: FOX News]

Tags: branding, contest, marketing, music, singing, top, web, yahoo, yodeling

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