As part of Yahoo’s big “It’s Y!ou!” campaign, the company has started an initiative to let users contribute to the famous “Yahoo! Yodel”. Yahoo has opened up what it calls the Yodel Studio. The aim is for people to personalize and reinterpret the yodel.
“The foundation of the ‘It’s Y!ou’ campaign is about making the web more personally relevant to each of our consumers, so it’s important that we engage the world in the creation of our new yodel,” said Elisa Steele, Yahoo! executive vice president and chief marketing officer. “It’s essentially a unique form of user generated content that honors the millions of people who visit Yahoo! every day.”
Yahoo is even going so far as to hold live Yodeling events featuring celebrities and musical artists. One is in New York City and one is in London. Tomorrow there will be one in Mumbai. New York’s event features Kimberly Caldwell, Jewel, LeAnn Rimes, Randy Jackson, Pete Wentz, and others. London’s features Pixie Lott, and Mumbai’s will feature Shankar Mahadevan, VJ Nikhil Chinappa, and Shaa’ir + Func. The events feature professional recording studios.
“The yodel is synonymous with Yahoo! and we’re ready for people around the world to put their unique expression on it,” added Steele. “Whether your yodel is 80s punk or country funk, the Yodel Studio is about self-expression, having fun and allowing all the people who use Yahoo! to be an essential part of our brand revitalization effort.”
Based on the number of times an entry is viewed, top yodels will ‘go gold,’ and one submission in the US, UK and India will each ‘go platinum.’ Participants can use built-in social media tools to help generate awareness for their yodels and voting for the platinum yodels will take place from November 9-15. Winners will be announced during the week of November 16, 2009 and will have a chance to be featured on the Yahoo! homepage and incorporated into Yahoo!’s new global advertising campaign.
Users have until November 8th to go to the Yodel Studio and create and submit their yodel. Different genre Yodel samples, check out this page.
