Nike’s “Write the Future” Ad Sets Viral Record

From Mashable:

Nike’s three-minute “Write the Future” epic, starring soccer superstars Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo, set a new record for most views of a viral video ad in its debut week, according to web video analytics company Visible Measures.

It beat the previous record holder, another Nike ad called “Earl and Tiger” featuring golfer Tiger Woods after his heavily publicized return to the sport.

Ad agency Wieden+Kennedy produced the ad, which was directed by illustrious Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu, who is best known for the critically-acclaimed film Babel. Nike VP Trevor Edwards was quoted in Advertising Age saying the ad is “among the best we’ve ever done.”

“Earl and Tiger” reached 6.3 million views in its first week and “Write the Future” achieved 7.8 million. The fact that “Write the Future” beat “Earl and Tiger” is even more impressive considering the fact that the latter hit the web amidst the Tiger Woods scandal. The current count for this new video on YouTube is 9.4 million.

The FIFA World Cup begins next month, and Nike’s advertising is capitalizing on the frenzy around the event. This video depicts soccer stars whose astounding athletic accomplishments and failures send waves through society, affecting world events and changing their own lives.

Non-Profit Uses Foursquare to Raise Environmental Awareness

From Mashable:

Earthjustice, a non-profit public interest law firm, has blanketed San Francisco BART trains with posters that instruct riders to check in to the “Earthjustice ad” on Foursquare (Foursquare) to help the firm raise money to support its wildlife protection initiatives.

The posters take a critical look at environmental issues in the news, such as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. That particular poster — as seen above — reads, “Use your cell phone to drill the oil industry.” For each Earthjustice ad checkin, a company donor with donate $10 to the cause in question — in this case, “unsafe oil drilling.”

The effort is specifically targeted at younger audiences who don’t typically respond to messages in advertisements. The hope is that by combining a compelling and relevant message with the Foursquare checkin donation, the younger demographic will be inspired to take an active interest in environmental causes.

Craftsman Labs Video Campaign Puts Tools To The Test

From Social Times:

Craftsman puts their tools through a series of rigorous tests in their new Craftsmen Labs video campaign. The campaign consists of a series of Jackass-esque videos, in which the Craftsman Labs team measures the strength and durability of their tools in surprising and entertaining ways. Craftsman Lab’s slogan, “The Proof Will Be Proven”, says it all.

The Craftsman Lab team pitches hammers at an old station wagon, goes bowling with a Wet/Dry vac, and sends a mannequin, complete with power drill, flying off the top of a building on a bike to show just how durable their tools are. These videos are great because they are entertaining but also serve a purpose—to show consumers just how powerful, strong and durable Craftsman tools are. The campaign’s most recent clip, Craftsman Music Experiment, takes a slightly different angle and makes music with tools. The video, which was mixed and edited by world-renowned musician and composer Kutiman, was made without the use of a single musical instrument—the entire clip is composed using the sounds of Craftsman tools. The video has just over 275,000 views on YouTube so far, but is bound to take off, as it really is amazing.

Craftsman Labs has a lot in store for the future, including a Craftsman tractor trip across the United States and more. Craftsman is also reaching out to consumers for interesting ideas about how to test other products.

I had the opportunity to ask Ryan Ostrom, Director of Multi-Channel for Craftsman, DieHard and Kenmore, a few questions about the campaign. Check out Ostrom’s answers below.

ST: Where did the idea for Craftsman Labs come from?

RO: We got the idea to create Craftsman Labs because Craftsman actually has a lab where we test our tools. Craftman is America’s most trusted tool brand, and in order to maintain that trust, we test every product before we put the Craftsman name on it. Many of the lab tests are meant to simulate real life circumstances. For instance, one of the tests we currently do is freeze a drill to simulate how it would react if it was left in a garage overnight in the middle of winter, and then we drop it of a ladder. The tests on www.craftsmanlabs.com are a little more theatrical, but they get the point across on the durability and performance of how the brand truly helps put “Trust in Your Hands.”

ST: Who is your target audience?

RO: We have seen a strong success with the younger consumer. For more than 80 years, Craftsman has provided innovative product solutions to our customers and we want to make sure we continue that for many years to come. First-time homebuyers and young DIYers are a key to that success.

ST: I noticed that on the Craftsman Labs website viewers can submit ideas for future videos. How has this worked out for you so far?

RO: Craftsman Labs has received quite a few of ideas from our site, many of which we plan to introduce. We had so many people suggest that we test the durability of our tractors by mowing through different materials, that it lead us to execute Craftsman Across America earlier this month. Craftsman Across America is a 3,300 mile journey from Santa Monica to New York City that will include various stops along the way with our key Sears Hometown Store partners. We found a great individual who will be riding the tractor for three straight months through America’s Heartland. Everyone can follow his journey by reading his daily blog on www.craftsmanacrossamerica.com . I mean, if a Craftsman garden tractor can make it across the country, imagine what it could do for your lawn.

ST: How else are you promoting Craftsman on the social web, aside from these videos?

RO: We are always striving to create unique online content to engage our customers and allow them to better understand Craftsman’s tool solutions and their ability to tackle any home improvement project. Craftsman has an active Facebook page (facebook.com/craftsman), Twitter account (@craftsmanclub) and YouTube channel (youtube.com/craftsman) to help communicate with our customers. Each day we post messages on our Facebook page discussing new tool announcements, project and DIY how-to tips. We also post questions and opinion polls to give our fans a chance to participate and provide feedback on tools, Craftsman programming, etc. Our YouTube channel includes how-to videos and as well our Craftsman Labs videos. The Craftsman Twitter account communicates new Craftsman tool information as well as valuable deals and coupons. Another interactive feature we have is on the Craftsman.com website. You can join the Craftsman Community to participate in tool discussions and write reviews on our Craftsman products. You can even submit your own tool ideas for a chance to have your creation brought to life.

ST: What’s in store for Craftsman Labs in the future?

RO: In the short term, we are very excited about our latest Craftsman Labs execution in which we partnered with world-renowned composer, musician and producer, Kutiman, on our latest installment, the Craftsman Music Experiment. Our first Craftsman Labs’ tests inspired this idea because as we conducted drop tests, many of the items started to sound like music. Combining these sounds with Kutiman’s talent, we had a very fun and creative way to showcase our tools’ durability. If you haven’t had a chance to see it yet, you can view the video on www.craftsmanlabs.com or on our Craftsman YouTube channel. Shortly, we will also be launching a fun addition to the site where customers can create their own Craftsman music piece by playing with the videos. In the long term, we will continue to put our Craftsman tools to the test and look forward to bringing some of our Craftsman fans’ ideas to life. And of course if we use anyone’s idea, we will be giving them a nod, so they can share it with their friends.

Six Flags To Launch Social Mascot Game On Facebook

From Social Times:

A cascade of free to play applications are hitting social networks as brands notice the economic sensibility of social games. From sports companies to media powerhouses, we’re seeing a cascade of free to play applications being launched on social networks. Joining the pack, the popular theme park chain Six Flags announced it will be releasing a new social and interactive game with partners Noise and Making Fun called Six Flags Mascot Park that encourages competition amongst players. The company will look to leverage its brand equity and layer it with creative game play and monetization but will face fierce competition as user acquisition becomes tougher by the day.

The goal of the game is to allow players to compete and out-perform other players using.. um.. Mascots in order to become the prime Mascot for Six Flags. That’s right. Players get to create their very own Six Flags branded mascot (an avatar) and dress it up as they like. Coupled with a realistic physics engine and fun interactivity, the game will strive to create a strong connection between the player and the mascot and we can expect Six Flags to monetize by providing premium avatar attire as well as scintillating dance moves.

“We wanted to offer fans a forum to entertain, amuse and interact but we also recognize the importance of integrating a unique and over-the-top experience to the online community,” said Mike Antinoro, executive vice president of marketing and entertainment.

Six Flags is looking to provide a lot of sociability by incorporating fun elements such as the ability to interact with and share performances with friends. The combination of fun animations like hip gyrations and fireworks should provide a compelling experience. Six Flags has millions of fans that tread their theme parks so they should be able to boost their users through marketing but the real growth will come from friend recommendations and ad campaigns. The game is set to debut this summer and we look forward to checking it out.

The Social Media Style Guide: 8 Steps to Creating a Brand Persona

Brian Solis is the author of Engage!, a new book that helps brands and businesses build, cultivate and measure success in the new Web.

From linkedoc.com

Anyone who has ever worked in corporate marketing, advertising, and branding is more than familiar with a brand style guide. It’s how we ensured that the brand was represented as intended through marketing aesthetics and messaging – including detailed usage instructions on font, style, color, language, placement, positioning, etc.

It is our bible and adherence to its tenets and instructions is strictly enforced.

However, with the unstructured proliferation of social media within many organizations, the brand style guide is seemingly disregarded or not considered in favor of expediting the creation of profiles in social networks and the participatory engagement that immediately ensues.

Everything the brand was intended to represent is no less important simply because new tools and services make it easier for anyone within the company to reach and connect with markets. The contents and purpose of a brand style guide still apply. In fact, the unification of a brand and what it both evokes and symbolizes is now paramount in this conversational medium to effectively attract, earn, and inspire customers and advocates.

While its highly likely that the design of each social profile works against the brand elements and usage guidelines in the existing style guide, at least in principle, the true quandary and risk in all of this, is the potential for brand confusion and dilution.

In social networks, the brand and how it’s perceived, is open to public interpretation and potential misconception now more than ever. Without a deliberate separation between the brand voice and personality and that of the person representing it, we are instantly at odds with our goals, purpose, and potential stature.

Simply said, the style guide is more important than ever before and it is in dire need of innovation in order to humanize and personify a brand voice and persona, something that people can truly connect to online and offline. Therefore, we need to revisit our core and modernize our story, how we present it, and how we intend to be perceived, setting the tone for engagement and resulting activity.

The goal of a social media style guide is to establish:

- What the brand represents in the social Web

- Its characteristics

- Brand personality traits

- The voice of the brand

- Attributes and voice necessary at the representative level

- Procedures and guidelines for representation, accountability, and workflow

- Metrics for quantifying activity and the intended results

Finding the brand “voice” is not enough however. The result we seek is intentional and aspirational in its design, calculation, presence and overall mission. In my new book Engage, I share a template to help brand managers define the brand personality, characteristics, and overall identity for the brand as well as establishing the voice and behavior of its representatives.

By completing The Brand Reflection Cycle, we uncover a series of important attributes that symbolize the brand, its personalities, and its characteristics, as well as defining and aligning the voice and personal brand of those on the front lines in social engagement.

The goal is to include brand managers and social ambassadors in this exercise to document the words that will personify the brand and what it symbolizes. This is how we bring new ideas to the surface and discuss them in a collaborative environment to renew the value and intention of the brand, making it something truly engaging in the social Web.

The Brand Reflection Cycle is divided into 8 stages designed to not only help us define the brand persona, but also to lay the foundation for a new, more socially inspired and relevant corporate culture and value system.

1. Core Values: The audience, surrounding environment, and the circumstances in which we are summoned contribute to our disposition and character. At the beginning, we need to form a common center of gravity to support the orbiting characteristics that support our mission and purpose. Essentially, we need to specify what we stand for and emanate it through all we do.

2. Brand Pillars: Pillars are the support objects that serve as the foundation to sustain and fortify the brand. It is these pillars that establish the principal, central themes that convey our uniqueness and value, fortified through the social objects we develop and distribute.

3. Promise: The pledge that paves the way to brand meaning and direction is the brand promise. It should answer a simple, yet powerful question: What is our mission and how does it introduce value to those who align with our purpose?

4. Aspirations: No brand is an island, nor is it inanimate. As such, the attributes we define today must continually evolve. Our aspirations are representative of the stature and mission we seek over time, and it’s constant. This is how we compete for the future.

5. Brand Characteristics: Defining the brand characteristics will help us establish the traits we wish to associate with the brand represented through our actions, words, and overall behavior.

6. Opportunities: As we complete this exercise, the identification of the attributes that are not embodied allow us to embrace a path to greater relevance. It’s a combination of who we are and what we offer today and also the opportunities that emerge that allow us to connect to those seeking solutions we had yet to identify.

7. Culture: The brand team must examine the culture of the company, not only what it is today, but ultimately how it should embody our aspirations so that it is readily identifiable in social media. People need something they can align with, and it is our culture that serves as the magnet to our purpose and aspirations. We are all in this together.

8. Personality: It is crucial that we contemplate, review, and designate the elements that we wish the brand to illustrate and represent. This final step in the completion of the Brand Reflection Cycle, is to identify and bring to life the personality and character of the brand through conversations, social objects, and stories. If the brand was a person, how would it appear? How would it sound? How would it interact with others? How would others describe it?

Everything begins with evaluating the brand’s journey through the past to where it is today, and ultimately where it must travel to maintain and continually establish relevance.

As we usher in the era of the next web, the brand style guide requires a social refresh in order to embody purpose, engender affinity, and earn relationships based on trust and value. In a social context, people aren’t looking to earn friendships with avatars or logos, they are seeking the attention of the people who personify the brand and the corresponding values they represent. It’s not just the brand personality that requires examination and establishment. The personality, tenor, and voice of the individuals representing the brand combined with a meaningful culture and mission, contribute to the overall brand experience – whether it’s in social networks or the real world.

The opportunity to update the brand style guide is so much more than a mere exercise. It renews our sense of purpose. It is a chance to breathe new life into everything we create, where and with whom we share it, and how we engage in online societies that contributes to the brand’s universal legacy of and the brand graph that weaves everything together.

Wendy’s Frosty Gets a Social Media Infusion

From Mashable:

With summer around the corner, the Wendy’s fast food chain is releasing a slew of social media promotions and incentives centered around its iconic Frosty desert treat.

The company will roll out three distinct social media promotions over the course of the summer that involve Twitter and Foursquare. Each endeavor, however, revolves around Facebook and the Frosty Facebook Page.

Wendy’s is also touching all corners of the social sphere with action-oriented contests for prizes and a fan-powered charity drive. It’s tit-for-tat marketing at its best, with social media designed to drive awareness around the brand and reward fan appreciation.

The Frosty Summer Social Tour

On Monday, Wendy’s launched Frosty Summer Vacation, the first of three Frosty-themed initiatives. Frosty is going on vacation and will use its Facebook Page — which already has close to 600,000 fans — to leave hints about its whereabouts. It’s essentially a digital scavenger hunt that runs through June 6.

Users 18 and up can access the application — which is live now — via the “Win” tab and sign up to tackle the challenge to find Frosty. After completing the registration form, Facebook users then gain access to a travel journal where they can view Frosty’s postcards and store each of the six letter stamps — one for each letter in Frosty — as they collect them.

Frosty will reveal clues as to how to locate individual stamps using digital postcards, and fans will receive a postcard from Frosty every few days. The first hint for finding the “F” stamp is already live, and it directs users to navigate through Frosty’s collection of Wall photos on Facebook. Users who collect a single letter are entered into a drawing to a $25.00 gift card, while those who collect all the stamps could win the grand prize: a trip for two to Hawaii or Alaska.

Once Frosty Summer Vacation comes to a close, the company will release its Treat it Forward application to raise money for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (DTFA). The initiative kicks off on June 7 and runs through June 20.

The campaign is timed to coincide with Father’s Day. Fans can participate in the social media charity drive and donate 50 cents to the DFTA by using the Treat it Forward application. Fans can pay it forward by with a #TreatItFwd hashtag tweet, a virtual Frosty Facebook gift, a Foursquare checkin at a Wendy’s restaurant or a Father’s day e-card created on Frostycard.com. For each fan action, Wendy’s will donate 50 cents to the DTFA in an effort to raise $50,000 with help from online brand fans.

Wendy’s is planning to contribute to the foundation via in-store promotions as well, so for every Frosty purchased on June 19 and 20, the company will donate 50 cents to the DTFA. In total, the company plans to raise $4.5 million for the foundation.

To close out the summer, Wendy’s will be inviting fans to share photos, videos and stories on how they enjoy Frostys for the Frosty Project. A custom Frosty Project Facebook application will launch on June 21 so that Frosty fans can use it to submit their digital Frosty memorabilia and other users can vote on the submissions they like best.

The company will award prizes — like Kindles and iPads — based on the most popular submissions. The contest runs through July 18, with voting taking place from July 19 to August 18. Winners will be announced on August 19.

Papa John’s Recruits Facebook Fans to Create Next Pizza

From Mashable:

In much the same way that Dunkin’ Donuts and Mountain Dew are tapping their online fans to create new products, Papa John’s is using Facebook to find their next speciality pizza.

The Papa’s Specialty Pizza Challenge tasks Facebook fans with creating the winning recipe for the company’s next specialty pizza through June 14. Although the campaign is just a few weeks old, there are already more than 6,500 entries.

Since the campaign launched, the application tab has been loaded close to 80,000 times, with users publishing upwards of 1,700 Facebook news feed items.

The volume of attention is to be expected as pizza creators are all vying for some serious cash and prizes. The top three submissions — as selected by “Papa” John Schnatter and corporate taste testers — will be integrated into the Papa John’s menu and sold in stores from August 2 to August 29. To the highest-selling pizza victor go the spoils: 1% of pizza sales post challenge (up to $10,000), pizza for life and a guest appearance in a Papa John’s TV commercial.

Masterminding a new specialty pizza is pretty simple. Users can name their pizza whatever they want, select a crust, pick a pizza sauce, add up to seven additional toppings and describe their machination. The final result is then posted on Papa John’s Facebook page where other users can like or share the specialty creation.

While it’s not the most original idea, the chain’s pizza challenge is an extremely savvy social media initiative. Since the contest is housed within Facebook, sharing is essentially baked into the campaign at every turn. So not only do Facebook users have to “Like” the Page to see the contest — with that behavior posted back to their activity feeds — but they can invite friends to take the challenge and post their pizza creations to their wall.

Another key element to the campaign is that the three finalists will likely need to use their social media presence to promote their pizzas if they want to win the grand prize. To help them with that endeavor, Papa John’s will give each finalist a marketing budget of $1000.

We’re curious to see how this challenge develops over the course of the summer. In the meantime, let us know if you plan to enter the contest, and tell us how you think the strategy compares to its rival company’s pizza holdout social media initiative.

21 Rules for Social Media Engagement

From Mashable:

Brian Solis is the author of Engage and a leading authority in digital branding and marketing. Connect with him on Twitter or Facebook. What follows is a modified excerpt from Engage, the complete guide for businesses to build, cultivate, and measure success in the new web.

Social media is reinventing marketing, communications, and the dissemination of information. While businesses now have access to these rich channels, the true promise of social media lies in the direct connections between people who represent companies and the people who define markets of interest.

Today, many businesses approach this with the establishment of social media guidelines and policies. This is indeed an important step, and not one worth economizing. But it’s also not enough. I highly recommend establishing official procedures that remind representatives of the importance and privilege of engagement.

The openness of popular networks is trivial. Any business can join and create a profile. It’s the devices we employ, the intentions that motivate engagement, and the value we offer that dictate the significance of the brand-specific social graphs we weave. It’s a simple investment in either visibility or presence. In social media, just like in the real world, presence is felt.

Rules of Engagement

---

As social media continues to evolve, defining the “rules of engagement” will encourage thoughtful interaction that benefits the business, brand, customer, peers, and prospects at every touchpoint. In the end, we earn the attention, relationships and business we deserve.

The following is an outline of best practices to help you craft a practical set of rules to guide representatives as they engage.

1. Discover all relevant communities of interest and observe the choices, challenges, impressions, and wants of the people within each network.

2. Don’t just participate solely in your own domains (Facebook () Fan Page, Twitter () conversations related to your brand, etc.). Participate where your presence is advantageous and mandatory.

3. Determine the identity, character, and personality of the brand and match it to the persona of the individuals representing it online.

4. Establish a point of contact who is ultimately responsible for identifying, trafficking, or responding to all things that can affect brand perception.

5. As in customer service, representatives require training to learn how to proactively and reactively respond across multiple scenarios. Don’t just put the person familiar with social networking in front of the brand.

6. Embody the attributes you wish to portray and instill. Operate by a code of conduct.

7. Observe the behavioral cultures within each network and adjust your outreach accordingly.

8. Assess pain points, frustrations, and also those of contentment in order to establish meaningful connections.

9. Become a true participant in each community you wish to activate. Move beyond marketing and sales.

10. Don’t speak at audiences through canned messages. Introduce value, insight and direction with each engagement.

11. Empower your representatives to offer rewards and resolutions in times of need.

12. Don’t just listen and placate — act. Do something.

13. Ensure that any external activities are supported by a comprehensive infrastructure to address situations and adapt to market conditions and demands.

14. Learn from each engagement and provide a path within the company to adapt and improve products and services.

15. Consistently create, contribute, and reinforce service and value.

16. Earn connections through collaboration and empower advocacy.

17. Don’t get lost in translation. Ensure your communication and intent is clear and that your involvement maps to objectives created for the social web.

18. Establish and nurture beneficial relationships online and in the real world as long as doing so is important to your business.

19. “Un-campaign” and create ongoing programs that keep you connected to day-to-day engagement.

20. “Un-market” by becoming a resource to your communities.

21. Give back, reciprocate, and recognize notable contributions from participants in your communities.

You Can Now Earn FarmVille Cash By Buying Green Giant Vegetables At The Grocery Store

Next time you’re walking around Target, take a look at the produce section and look closely at the labels, because Green Giant vegetables are now advertising free 15 FarmVille cash for buying Green Giant vegetables, and it’s clearly labeled on the produce itself. This is one of the biggest real world promotions we’ve seen, and from a major brand as well. Zynga is starting to pick up steam with their partnerships and it’s only bound to continue. Credit goes to Farmville Freak for breaking the news.

From Social Times

Lucky Magazine Brings “Pop-Up” Shop to Facebook

Lucky magazine and e-retailer HSN have teamed up to offer Facebook Fans exclusive early access to their Summer Designer Capsule Collection. The full series, which features apparel and accessories by designers Anna Foley, Gerard Yosca, Pour La Victoire, PadeVavra and Thread made especially for the partnership, will be available on HSN.com on May 19 and 20.

At noon EST today, a selection of items from the collection became available early to Facebook Fans of Lucky and HSN via the “Pop-Up Shop” tabs on each one’s Facebook Page. You can browse and select the items you’d like to purchase on the tab, which will automatically fill your shopping cart on HSN. Once you’re done shopping, you can finish the checkout process at HSN’s website.

Lucky will receive a portion of all sales made via HSN’s website. Although the partnership is a bit unusual for a magazine — whose relationships with advertisers are primarily confined to publishing print advertisements — the promotion is very in-line with others Lucky has done with retailers. Lucky recently teamed up with Foursquare to offer reviews and discounts at various retailers to users of the service.

The promotion is part of a larger attitudinal shift in the publishing world. Previously, publishers focused entirely on driving traffic from platforms like Facebook to their sites. Now, publishers are trying to better integrate their content onto Facebook. We learned earlier this week, for instance, that several major magazine publishers plan to make their articles available entirely in users’ newsfeeds in an effort to increase subscription sales.

Ford Fiestas Check In and Tweet Cross-Country

The great American road trip tradition gets a modern twist tomorrow with the kickoff of Ford’s social media-connected, cross-country journey. Two Ford Fiestas bedecked with a suite of custom-built online applications will depart from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for a week-long trip to San Francisco’s Maker Faire on May 22.

The culmination of a year-long innovation research project between Ford and U of M students dubbed “American Journey 2.0,” the socially connected jaunt pairs a team of Ford engineers in one car with a team of students in the other. The student team won a competition for most compelling in-car app with Caravan Track, a program that allows clusters of vehicles to track each other while traveling together — one we could have put to good use in our own separation-prone road trips back in the day.

Another app in use along the journey will be Virtual Road Rally, which allows users to define points-of-interest and physical landmarks, as well as post drive parameters like the amount of fuel used. The app could potentially turn into a collaborative hypermiling game.

Another app, “Auto”matic Blog, will allow the engineers’ car to automatically blog and tweet its impressions of the journey. Similar to Sony Ericsson’s Connected Tree project, “Auto”matic Blog will imbue the vehicle with a certain “personality” and mood based on information gathered from data sensors and engine computer codes in the car. You can follow the road trip car’s “thoughts” on Twitter at @AJtheFiestaduring the course of the venture.

The vehicle will also automatically check in to Foursquare locations along the way via a Local Search app.

“The car is the ultimate mobile device,” said Venkatesh Prasad, a technical leader in the Ford Research & Advanced Engineering team. “We’re researching how to responsibly and safely harness the Internet to enhance drivers’ time behind the wheel.”

What do you think of this “Internet on wheels” trend? Is it possible to add connected intelligence on the road while maintaining safety?

The Best New Facebook Marketing Campaigns in 2010

Any business can put up a Facebook fan page. Not every business can create a page that excites users, encourages them to share the page with friends, creates a viral buzz and adds thousands of new fans. Here are a few of the best new social media marketing campaigns on Facebook

that we have seen this year:

Bing

Microsoft’s Bing ran a campaign on Zynga’s hit game FarmVille recently. If a user became a fan of Bing’s Facebook Page by clicking on a Bing ad, they would receive Farmville cash. The Bing ad was located on the bottom of the Farmville landing page. It was a good harvest – Bing’s Facebook page went from 100,000 to 500.000 users – 400,000 new fans – in only one day.

Integrating a Facebook social game into a marketing strategy is a great idea. FarmVille has 83 million monthly users and 28 million daily active users. Only about 1% of all FarmVille users participated in the 24 hour event. This engagement number is awesome, especially if you are a new search engine like Bing who is trying to promote an alternative to Google.

Target

Target Retail Stores had an innovative and altruistic Facebook campaign on Valentine’s Day. They gave away $1 million to a charity that their Facebook fans could choose. The fans chose the charity with a Facebook app called a “Super Love Sender.” The charities Target supported were: Kids in Need Foundation, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, The Salvation Army, United Through Reading Military Program, and the United Way. There was a real-time graph to see how the charities competed with each another. The winning charity? The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Digicel – Jamaica
Digicel – the biggest cellular phone company in Jamaica – just announced that its’ Facebook fan page has over 100,000 users since the launch of their “Giveaway” campaign. The giveaways include free handsets, phone credit and “Fast Finger Giveaways” – where they put a code on their Facebook page and the first person who dials the code wins free phone credit. Over the last 30 days, there was a 298 percent increase in the number of participants. Digicel also posts videos, advertisements, news releases, photos and a social event calendar on their Facebook page.

Red Bull

What does Red Bull have up its’ sleeve these days? Their Facebook page is loaded with skateboarding and extreme sport events, races, parties and a thing called the Red Bull Stash – an adventure where you search for cases of Red Bull that have been hidden all over the country. All you do is enter your zip code to get clues for your city and your Red Bull scavenger hunt begins. After you find one stash you will be on the way to the final stash – an unmentioned grand prize.

Kellogg’s Cereal

Kellogg’s Cereal created an altruistic campaign on their Facebook page called “Kellogg’s Cares” where they donate food, educate young people about proper nutrition and work to reduce global malnutrition. They have a partnership with Feeding America – the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity. Kellogg’s produced a series of videos about hunger that are posted on Facebook. They had 200,000 new fans in less than a month, and the vast majority were women over 25. That is the audience they wanted to reach. The impact could not be directly measured but it had interactivity and got people involved and emotionally invested in the campaign.

Domino’s Pizza

Domino’s has taken off their cooking gloves and they have come out swinging – and they’re doing it on Facebook. It all revolves around “The Pizza Turnaround” where they listen to customer complaints and then act upon them. They have a “Celebrate” page promoting a taste test where they beat Papa John’s and Pizza Hut. They have a “Stop Puffery” campaign (also on Twitter) that makes fun of Papa John’s. They also have coupons for their fans and commercials with “focus groups” – groups of people who tell Domino’s how to improve their pizza and then how Domino’s improves it.

Ten Great Facebook Marketing Campaigns

Facebook is the world’s biggest site for social media marketing. It claims to have 350 million active users in 180 countries – and 50% of them log onto it every day. Advertisers are scrambling for ways to make their clients stand out in this vast network. Here are ten recent Facebook marketing campaigns that worked. They are original, they cut through the clutter and they created a buzz. You will also see that most of these promotions

did something creative with their product or service that engaged the user.

Sad Friends

McCann Erickson Advertising in Israel created a great Facebook application for Yellow Retail, a provider of online games and novelty items. This app searched for your friends and found “Sad Friends” with status updates like “I’m depressed”, “I’m lonely,” “I’m bored,” etc. Then it sent them a notification with a coupon for a free game at Yellow Retail. It’s cool – and it tied in a Facebook feature with a product benefit.

Ikea - Showroom

This campaign was for a new Ikea store that used the default “tagging” tool on Facebook to help create excitement for a contest. People were told to tag their name on any item, and the first one who did would win that item. The moment you tagged something, everyone in your network knew about it and soon thousands of people were flooding the Facebook page looking for free giveaways. The campaign was an instant hit.

One Way Ticket

V Australia - a division of Virgin Airlines - launched a clever campaign that let you nominate a “frenemy” (a combination of “friend” and “enemy”) who could be sent to the destination of their choice anywhere in the world. But there was a catch – it was a one way ticket. This served as a great promotion for a new airline and it also helped to grow V Australia’s Facebook fan page from 1,200 to over 11,000 in only a week. V Australia is off to good start with their social media marketing and it will be interesting to see what they come up with next.

Whopper Sacrifice

The idea behind “Whopper Sacrifice” was simple enough - delete ten of your Facebook friends and get a free Whopper. It caught on like wildfire because by the end of the campaign over 50,000 friends had been deleted.

But deleting friends isn’t what Facebook is about. Facebook wants people to make connections, not cancel them, and Burger King was eliminating more friendships than the giant social media site was comfortable with. All good things must come to an end – and ultimately the Whopper Sacrifice was sacrificed. Although some people are now wondering if it was worth losing a friend over a hamburger.

Red Bull - Fan Page

This is not a campaign per se but it deserves to be mentioned. The Red Bull Fan Page is one of the most exciting places on Facebook because it breaks out of the stereotype and offers content that is fun and funny – and it encourages fans to interact and connect with the brand.
The Red Bull “Boxes” section is great. One application called “Drunkish Dials” lets people rate “drunk dialing” phone calls. Another section is the “Procrastination Station” – where you can learn how to waste precious time. There are tie-in’s with snowboarding and surfing – but let’s get real – a lot of people like the way Red Bull ties in with vodka.
This is a brand that knows its audience and their kind of honesty goes a long way in social media marketing.

Doritos - Guru Contest

The latest product from Canada’s favourite tortilla chip didn’t have a name so last year Doritos called on consumers for help A promotion was held on Facebook last year for Canadian residents. Doritos Canada enlisted young snackers to help name a flavor of a new product and create a television commercial. The turn out was huge. Submissions were made in a 30 second video format and any kind of showcase was acceptable – dance, music, comedy, digital or animation.
On May 1st Canadian’s voted for “Scream Cheese.” The commercial aired on TV and online, and the winners walked away with $25,000 plus 1 % of net sales. The people who won the prize screamed – not for cheese – but for joy.

Adobe – Real or Fake

Adobe had a challenge – how to increase awareness among college students for the launch of Adobe Student Editions, a new multimedia software product. They wanted students to know that they could purchase these products at an 80% discount. The solution was a promotion called “Real or Fake” using the Adobe Facebook Fan Page.

Users had to decide whether a photo was real or a “fake” one edited with Photoshop. The game lasted for 4 weeks with 5 photos being posted each week. If a photo had been edited with Photoshop, a tutorial showed how it was done. At the end of the game, users were presented with information about Adobe Student Editions. The game

was a success because it tied-in neatly with Photoshop – a product Adobe is famous for.

H & M - Fan Page

H&M, the big Swedish clothing company, has an innovative and engaging Facebook Page and a community of almost 1,500,000 fans. What are they doing right? They focus on keeping their page current and their content fresh. They use page tabs and constantly update their page with current promotions, grand openings and new designer launches. They take advantage of all of the newest engagement ads, including Become a Fan, Polling and Event RSVP. Most important - they create an interactive dialogue with their most avid fans, instead of just posting information. H & M seems to understand what social media marketing is all about – it’s about making friends.

Adidas - Originals

Adidas Originals is a line extension of Adidas that celebrates originality. The Adidas Orginals campaign celebrated 60 years of originality with a campaign featuring top athletes and celebrities like David Beckhan, Missy Elliot and Run DMC. The Adidas Originals Facebook Page encouraged two-way conversations with Adidas consumers and motivated them with stories about artists, musicians and celebrities. The David Beckham video was very popular. Today the Adidas Originals Facebook Page has over 2,000,000 fans.

Pringles - Videos

The Facebook Fan Page for this potato chip doesn’t grab you like Red Bull but the videos are great. They are low budget productions of people singing silly songs. There is very little editing or props but thousands of people “like” the videos and share them with their friends. This gives Pringles a chance to promote their product without having to a resort to a paid ad. That’s good business by itself because the average cost of producing a TV commercial today is over $400,000.

Videos are easy to consume and they are one of the most popular types of shared content online. This is why many businesses try to make videos that will go “viral” - in other words - get seen by an exponentially growing number of people. This is not an easy feat and when you’re successful it can be a goldmine.

Pringles gets a thumbs up for doing this. They have nearly 3,000,000 fans now - not bad for a potato chip that got its name out of a Cincinnati phone book.

Domino’s Social Media Campaign Offers Free Food to “Pizza Holdouts”

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You’ve probably spotted the Domino’s Pizza Holdouts TV commercials that highlight the pizza chain’s efforts to get everyone to try their new pizza. The company has just launched a complementary social media campaign to encourage fans to spread the Pizza Holdouts message.

The goal of the game is to hunt down friends and place a “bounty” on them via the Taste Bud Bounty Hunter game. For each bounty placed, the friend in question is gifted with a coupon for a free pizza (with purchase of a second pizza). The bounty issuer also gets a coupon in turn (first time only). Should the friend order with your coupon (before any others), you “capture” their taste buds. After ten captures, you’ll earn a coupon for a free large one-topping pizza.

The ongoing challenge will reward the bounty hunter with the most taste bud captures by June 27 with free pizza for a year (one $20 gift card each week). There’s also six-month and three-month free pizza prizes up for grabs as well as other small prizes.

The site — while nicely tied-in with the overall Pizza Holdouts campaign — has its shortcomings. Even though you connect your Facebook account to access and use the Taste Bud Bounty Hunter game, there’s no way to place a bounty by selecting a Facebook friend. Instead, manual entry of name and email address is required. Plus, for each bounty you place, an update is automatically posted on your Facebook profile, whether you want it to or not.

The Domino’s-branded game is more kitsch than ingenious. It also is more focused on engineering virality over incorporating fan feedback the way Mountain Dew did with their DEWmocracy campaign. At the end of the day, though, the promise of free pizza, rewards and coupons may be all Domino’s needs to attract interest and win over the last remaining pizza holdouts.