Skittles ads are so random! I love the new one, right on par.

Check it out:

Some other classic Skittles ads:

Some are a bit of a stretch but overall… wow.

A great viral from Nike (much better than their air from athletes fail)

I’ve heard a lot of MDs and marketing managers talking about their Twitter or Facebook “campaigns” lately, and not really understanding what the real benefits of Social Media are. They have been loosely playing with these tools, and maybe have even run offers but haven’t really seen any obvious returns or benefits. Most of them are approaching these tools as stand-alone areas, with no real plan. They don’t stop to think, “What is Social Media?”

Social Media is the chatter occurring between customers, observers, critics, companies and it’s a conversation that’s happening right now whether you’re involved or not.

In fact, most likely it’s happening online right now about your brand. Take a quick look! Search for your brand in Google. Check the Twitterverse.

If you want to be really thorough try a real-time search website such as Social Mention. http://www.socialmention.com/

Facebook and Twitter alone aren’t social media, they are two tools with which people engage in Social Media (of the many - take a look at this Conversation Chart for an idea of how much is out there). This is an important consideration when planning your online campaign.

Consistency is very important in an online presentation of your brand. What your saying on Twitter should be consistent with what you say on your website. What you post on Facebook should tie in with your Linked-In. Your landing pages should connect with your different online advertising and so on.

Remember: One Message across many tools.

Your Social Media campaign should be about engagement and evolution. People have the opportunity to express their sentiment and air their grievances with you at any hour from anywhere. Ideally, quick reaction to these comment will aid you greatly. You can respond to misconceptions about your brand by providing an information “hub” (such as a micro site) and then funnel people to that point. You can learn about your businesses strengths and weaknesses, and what people REALLY think about your brand. People are brutally honest, approaching outright harsh online, but this doesn’t need to be a bad thing.

Of course, we don’t all have time in our schedules for such an intense level of involvement. Even if you can only set aside one hour a week for Social Media, you will still reap immense benefits and be amazed by what you can do for your brand with this exciting medium. Start exploring these tools and work towards establishing a long term plan rather than seeding small disjointed conversations online.

The first video ever uploaded to YouTube really set the tone for the next million…

A cute little promo.

I was at a conference yesterday when one of the presenters said that “85% of journalists begin their research online”.

While I couldn’t actually find this statistic repeated anywhere, looking for it I did find some stats that I thought were interesting.

Some quick stats:

Some more reading on this if you’re interested:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/32987/
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/04/02/more-journalists-using-facebook-and-twitter

This got me wondering… Say you were a disgruntled customer and you decided to post some false information on a user controlled information source such as Wikipedia. You could really say anything you wanted as long as it fitted in with the article and was a hard point to disprove without proper investigation.

Then imagine a rushed journalist (for a semi-credible news site) read this tidbit in the Wikipedia article and, without doing their research, decided to include this in their own article. Already this is sounding pretty nasty right?

Right, but what if then you modify the Wikipedia article to refer to the then published article as it’s reference point… Suddenly you would have a much more legitimate sounding piece of information, which more credible journalists might start writing articles based on, and the cycle continues.

Incredible, right? I looked further into it and it turns out this happened before.

A Dublin University student, Shane Fitzgerald, actually carried out an experiment where he fictitiously attributed a quote to Maurice Jarre on Wikipedia after his death. A few news sites picked it up initially (as the Fitzgerald expected) but it culminated with some very “credible” sources actually publishing his quote in newspapers! It was only brought to light when Fitzgerald himself removed his quote and informed these papers and news sites that the information was falsified. Apparently many sites haven’t even corrected this error, and so this quote will probably continue being incorrectly attributed to poor Maurice.

You can read more about it here, and about how other industries are experiencing this same problem.

I’d love to hear any journalists thoughts on this topic!

Today’s post comes from the mind and fingers of Nicholas Lynn

The Orabrush awareness drive.

It starts with a YouTube clip giving people an ‘education’ on the causes of bad breath, as told by a trustworthy sounding gay fella. The video doesn’t start of like an advert, but is giving people info on how to tell if you have bad breath… Here’s the clip:

At the end of the clip, you are asked if, ‘by-the-way’, you would like to try their product, OraBrush for Free. And they give you a link to their promo page.

Then, on their promo page, you are told more about the product and also that it is worldwide and blah, blah, blah. Oh look, what’s this! To get the free OraBrush you need to tell a friend about OraBrush… maybe even buy one for a friend? And also, you have to join their Facebook group… why sure, anything for a free tongue brush!

And ta-dah! Millions have watched the video… In fact, when i watched it this morning, it had 3 million views… now it has 7 million and by the time you watch it, who knows.

So there you go… a case study in a recent product is marketed via Web 2.0 & social media.

Today’s post comes from the mind and fingers of Nicholas Lynn

Everyone has a camera, everyone loves dancing. Combine these two things and WA-WHAM! Dancing Flash Mobs.
Here are a couple I’ve seen lately:

H&M Kids Fashion Flash Mob

Some 55 kids, decked out in H&M Kids Fashion, proceed to have a fly hip-hop dance battle in the middle of Union Square, San Francisco.
A great demonstration of the great range of movement (splits abound!) and comfort these clothes provide for kids (as well as sweet hip-hop cred!)

Bondi Beach

This is a routine organised by DJ Dan Murphy and led by famous aussie drag queen, Joyce Maynge. They are part of Rock Your Box - Join up here if you’re keen on getting involved in their next one.

aaaaand, with over 1 million views, this next video goes to show you just can’t beat a fat guy in Speedos doing a dance.