As a Columbus website design firm we help companies show up on Google.
Which is why, traditionally, we think of companies and organizations using the power of search engine optimization to make sure they are found on a Google search.
But what happens when an entire country has an image problem and wants to change how everyone else perceives them? Well, evidently, Romania has that issue and it launched a campaign to change that using the power of Google.
You can see the "Romanians Are Denigrated on the Internet" campaign here.
It's a fascinating case study of how a government is reaching out on a grass roots level to change the way they're seen by the rest of the world. And it seems to have worked. Enough Romanians have Googled the "Romanians are smart" phrase, that now, it's the first phrase Google fills in.
Of course, being a Columbus website design firm we only know one Romanian (shout out to Tom!), and he's pretty
cool, so we're gonna assume most Romanians are awesome. The video was developed in Romania, by the Bucharest division of McCann Erickson, the large American ad agency.
Along a similar line, author and activist Dan Savage (Savage Love) created a Google campaign against Rick Santorum. Dan Savage is a gay blogger, and Rick Santorum's infamous line that gay men are on a "slippery slope to having sex with dogs," understandably pissed off Dan Savage. (Along with man other logical people.) So Dan started the campaign that resulted in the first ORGANIC result that appears when you Google "santorum." Just try it yourself and see what comes up.
