Hasta La Creative!

On Monday, we posted Miller Lite’s new national TV spot, featuring a handful of fan photos selected from some 180,000 gathered through the immensely successful #ItsMillerTime hashtag campaign.

Now, with impeccable timing, Newcastle is here to call bollocks on the whole idea.

The British brewer, known for its anti-marketing marketing, just launched its own hashtag campaign, #NewcastleAdAid, in which it’s also asking for fan snapshots—and promises to use the wonders of Photoshop to turn them into really shoddy-looking ads.

Why the sudden embrace of low-cost user-generated content? Because it blew its marketing budget on celebs for the Super Bowl and the Fourth of July.

“Newcastle recognized it needed more ‘engaging social content’ to keep all of its new followers interested, but this lazy branded content wasn’t going to make itself,” the brand tells AdFreak. “Newcastle definitely is not the first brand to ask fans to post photos on social media to ‘build a stronger community’ and whatnot, but Newcastle definitely is the best at turning those photos into into obvious, exaggerated, poorly executed ads.”

Here’s the pitch video from Droga5, running on Twitter and Facebook:

brightcove.createExperiences();

Expedia and 180LA have done a nice job lately of thinking more broadly about the concept of travel, going beyond physical journeys into emotional, even spiritual ones. (Among its more memorable ads was the 2012 spot about the father’s difficult journey to accepting his lesbian daughter.)

Now, the travel site is getting even more ambitious—and more social—as it travels back in time with a fun project around people’s Throwback Thursday photos.

Between now and the end of August, Expedia is asking Instagram and Twitter users to tag their #tbt photo with @Expedia and #ThrowMeBack. Each week the company will pick one lucky winner and give them a travel voucher so they can indulge their nostagia and return to the place where the photo was taken—and recreate it.

Or, says Expedia, you can travel somewhere different and make a new memory—which seems to suggest this campaign is less about actually recreating the old snapshots and more about just piggybacking on the #tbt trend in general. However, the brand is asking the winners to send in the recreated photos with the goal at the end of the campaign of telling a photo story with all the side-by-sides.

“We all have great memories of summer vacations,” says Dave Horton, creative director at 180LA. “So to promote the nostalgia of summer travel, we wanted to tap into the most nostalgic trend out there, #tbt.”

To promote the contest, Expedia has posted the video below, “Back to Ocean Beach,” showing one family’s journey from Washington State to their old beach spot in San Diego to recreate a cute photo from the ’80s.

Read more about the campaign at instagram.piqora.com/expediathrowmeback.

The newest high-profile member on LinkedIn probably isn’t going to write you a recommendation or endorse you for your propensity for tweeting any time soon. Probably because she’s plastic and can’t form sentences.

That totally sounds like insult, but that’s true. Entrepreneur Barbie has joined the career networking site. Her latest status is “My new business is ‘Dream Incubator’ where I act as a consultant, helping girls around the world play out their imagination, try on different careers, and explore the world around them. Our company tagline is ‘If you Can Dream It, You Can Be it!’ “

I dreamed I was a dinosaur. Never mind.

Entrepreneur Barbie comes with a tablet (tech savvy!), a smartphone, a briefcase (so business-y!), a pink dress (…) and a high ponytail. Reviews of Entrepreneur Barbie have been mixed. Jennifer Fleiss, co-founder of Rent the Runway—an ingenious service that lets you wear a Badgley Mischka gown and then return it—says on the Barbie site: “She is my idea of a go-getter girl and has encouraged me to believe that women can have it all: a career, a family and a great wardrobe.”

Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code, told TechCrunch: “You can’t be what you cannot see. Having positive role models for dolls that are inspiring young girls to be entrepreneurs is exactly what we need to inspire a generation of young women to start running businesses.”

On the other hand, Salon calls her “a misfire attempt at inspiring girls.” Forbes says it’s an “affront to little girls.” And 16-year-old former TED speaker Adora Svitak believes she “encourages an unrealistic expectation of beauty grounded in narrow ideals—whiteness, thinness, a lack of hair and an abundance of breast tissue—instead of kindness, smarts, self-confidence or athleticism.”

Barbie’s LinkedIn resume is looking awfully impressive, and her profile boasts over 2,500 followers. I’ll keep my fingers crossed in hopes that her face will pop up on my profile in that creepy-cool “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” feature.

Via Digiday.

Mike’s Hard Lemonade has changed its name—in a temporary, promotional-stunt kind of way—to Paul’s Hard Lemonade to salute Paul Siano of Illinois, the 1 millionth fan on its Facebook page.

The Tris3ct agency orchestrated the effort, which boasts a “Paul’s Hard Lemonade” rebranding of the Mike’s website, along with its Facebook and Twitter pages, through Friday. Special packaging, labels, logos and T-shirts were created, and Siano was presented with a six-pack of his namesake brew. The renaming was launched within 24 hours of identifying him as the millionth fan, and of course there’s a commemorative video (with a disco soundtrack and a big crate of lemons in the brand’s office!).

Hmm … Paul’s Hard Lemonade. It’s got a nice ring to it. I guess. Even so, it’s no Dave’s Hard Lemonade. Now that would really win me over.

Last fall, Jessica Shyba's photos of her son and new puppy napping together went viral. Shyba's blog about life with three kids in NYC, Momma's Gone City, was already fairly popular, and she had a respectable 5,000 Instagram followers. But her #theoandbeau images made her an overnight sensation. Soon she had 450,000 Instagram followers.

The Land of Nod, the retail brand geared to parents of young children, saw the potential in capitalizing on the success of Theo and Beau. So, it reached out to Shyba to commission a photo for the cover of their May catalog. And the result was clearly a win-win.

"The Land of Nod is a brand that fully embraces social media from many facets, whether it be product sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes of corporate life or partnerships with innovative and energetic bloggers," Katie Harrington, a public relations and social media strategist at the company, tells AdFreak. "We were working with Jessica on a bedroom makeover for her boys at the same time we needed a subject for our May catalog cover. We strive for our covers to portray something sentimental, almost encompassing this 'age of innocence' mentality that quite frankly is sometimes hard to capture through produced shoots. We all felt this connection and true love story between Theo and Beau and believed that relationship struck a cord with our catalog needs."

Shyba is also pleased with the partnership. "The neatest part about this collaboration was seeing my friends everywhere posting photos of the catalog on social media and mentioning how nice it was to see Theo and Beau in their mailbox," she says. "It's a professional milestone for me in the greatest way, too, having been commissioned to share my art on the cover of a popular catalog."

The catalog cover is beautiful, and it's a lovely case study for brands establishing relationships with rising stars and their eager followings.

See the full catalog cover below, and outtakes from the shoot on Shyba's blog.

Os feeds RSS ainda são meu jeito favorito de conferir as notícias, mas muita gente acompanha novidades através de redes sociais como o Twitter. O complicado, no entanto, é evitar a repetição e conseguir conferir os bons links que circulam pela timeline.

Para ajudar nessa tarefa, o setor de P&D do New York Times desenvolveu o Vellum, uma ferramenta que varre os links compartilhados pelas pessoas que você segue no Twitter e agrupa-as por frequência. Com isso, o Vellum ‘inverte’ o modelo do Twitter – ao invés do comentário (tuíte) ser o mais importante, o link compartilhado ganha relevância e é mostrado como se fosse uma manchete, e os perfis que compartilharam aquela informação se tornam comentários associados ao material, explica Alexis Lloyd, diretor criativo do setor de P&D do NYT.

O mais bacana é que, após um período de testes dentro da redação do jornal, o Vellum agora está disponível para o público. Basta acessar o site com o seu login do Twitter para ver os últimos links compartilhados pelas pessoas e perfis que você segue (e ainda funciona de dedo-duro para quem faz reposts programados, repare na imagem).

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Activities in recent years certainly shows a trend toward the benefits of focusing on social networking and marketing. The numbers of both offline and online businesses getting involved with Facebook only continues to grow each day. But the great news is you can do this, as well, and work to create your own place there. If you really want to take advantage of this, then there is really no justification to wait any longer. Social marketing, at other sites apart from Facebook, contains a number of diverse methods which is fantastic for business. You should try to find the ways that can be used the best for your company.

If you want to do something that can certainly help your business, then just think along the lines of increasing your brand. Depending on your distinct business, you can brand yourself or your business. As you can easily envision, how each business is branded will vary depending on where your income takes place. You probably already know that Twitter, Youtube and Facebook are actually the three heavyweights in social media and marketing. Of course, each one must be approached differently and with different media, such as video at Youtube. You can capitalize on allowing your market have some fun and that can work wonderfully with all of them. Entertainment and the principle of fun at these sites can be tremendously effective, plus there is an higher chance of something becoming viral.

When you think about speaking to your customers, then that means social marketing and networking. Making the most through your marketing with that method is one of the most effective things you can do. Take the time to be there among those in your market, and you can acquire all kinds of useful information. One thing that ought to come to mind is market research and a new way of doing it. Then there are customer service potentials which can change into good things for your business. While you’re there you can let them know you are generally there, and then simply make yourself accessible if there are any problems. That is a level of customer support and assistance that does not exist very much, anymore.

Market research is vital for any business, and you can tap into a new way of doing that. The main way this happens is because people chat at these sites. The persons in your market will be interested in real discussions about what is important. So then just think about if they are talking about their various experiences with buying something. You will have the ability to eavesdrop about challenges in your market, or solutions that you may want to find out about. All you really want to do is show-up, and next be in a great position to pick up what is going on. It can make a tremendous difference when you are able to understand their language and the words they use. Your marketing and advertising messages and copy will convert much better when it speaks the same language as your market.

Pode vir iPhone 17s, podem vir novos Spotifies, podem finamente inventar o teletransporte e a maquininha de dentista sem barulho: a evolução da tecnologia ainda consegue ser batida por ideias simples (mesmo que viabilizadas pela tecnologia) que favorecem o desenvolvimento das pessoas. É como aquela história da corrida espacial, dos EUA demoraram 2 anos e meio inventando uma caneta que escrevesse em gravidade zero enquanto os Soviéticos optaram por levar lápis.

Enfim… Um projeto do CNA, escola de idiomas, me chamou atenção justamente pela simplicidade. Aquela sensação de que qualquer pessoa podia ter pensado nisso antes, mas simplesmente não pensou.

Criada pela FCB Brazil, o Speaking Exchange conecta estudantes brasileiros que querem ganhar fluência em inglês a idosos moradores de asilos de Chicago. E fim. Pronto. Eles conversam, estudantes somam conhecimento e velhinhos ganham uma das coisas mais valiosas nessa idade: atenção. Tudo isso via um programa de conferência, praticamente um clone do Skype.

Depois, é claro, professores entram em ação para assistirem as conversas, acompanharem o desempenho dos alunos e corrigir alguns deslizes gramaticais.

O vídeo acima explica tudo isso. Para os mais sensíveis, vale preparar um lencinho antes de ver.

(Obs: Este não é um post patrocinado, apesar de cliente e agência serem brasileiros. Eu, inclusive, trabalho para uma agência concorrente e espero não ter problemas por ter divulgado a ação. Ok, chefe?)

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Here's a powerful example of the potential of social media and brand charity.

Friends of an Ohio teenager who was born without a full right arm launched a #HandforTorri campaign on Twitter to get her a prosthesis. The effort led them to contact The Buried Life, the troupe of young guys who built a bucket-list-themed media franchise, including a couple of seasons of an MTV show and a book. They in turn persuaded Hanger Inc., a top manufacturer of prosthetics, to give Torri a $150,000 bionic arm.

It's an amazing story, reminiscent of Matthew James, the British teen and drag racing fan who a few years back convinced Mercedes to gift him a prosthesis. Thankfully, Torri's gift appears to come minus any talk of slapping a car marketer's brand on her new limb.

Check out the video below, and maybe keep a couple tissues handy.

Via BuzzFeed.

A long time ago in a brand galaxy far, far away…

May the Fourth be with you. Perhaps news of the cast of the newest installment in the Star Wars saga sitting down for a table read is getting nerds super excited, or maybe it's that there's really no political or religious connotation to this "holiday," but brand participation in Star Wars Day was hard to miss on Sunday. 

Either way, the force was strong, as many, many brands joined in on Twitter. From ridiculous (awesome) puns to visual metaphors, there were several clever entries as well as a few half-witted, scruffy-looking Nerf herders. (Of note: Nerf's absence from the list.)

Impressive, brands. Most impressive. But you're not a Jedi yet.

 
• NASA

Flying by the "Death Star," Saturn's moon Mimas! http://t.co/gvgsnDEBYC #MayThe4thBeWithYou #HappyStarWarsDay pic.twitter.com/dCTDiZxNpx

— NASA (@NASA) May 4, 2014

 
• Frapuccino

I am your Frappuccino. #frappuccinohappyhour pic.twitter.com/g7PD5m6EUH

— Frappuccino (@frappuccino) May 4, 2014

 
• Airheads

Would you join the dark side if they offered free Airheads? May the 4th be with you. pic.twitter.com/wCu5utEiHv

— Airheads Candy (@airheadscandy) May 4, 2014

 
• Nokia USA

May the fourth be with you. 😉 #starwarsday #iamyourfather pic.twitter.com/T9RRh567vM

— Nokia USA (@NokiaUS) May 4, 2014

 
• Nissan USA

Adventure. Excitement. The JUKE craves both these things. #MayTheFourthBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/XwxVj6aB8p

— Nissan (@NissanUSA) May 4, 2014

 
• The Vitamine Shoppe

Whey, I am your father. #Maythe4thBeWithYou #fitness pic.twitter.com/A2Rmy1UNnQ

— The Vitamin Shoppe (@VitaminShoppe) May 4, 2014

 
• Powers Whiskey

May The 4th Be With You! Celebrate with a #PowersWhiskey at your local cantina pic.twitter.com/c2umT8rY6D

— Powers Whiskey (@Powers_Whiskey) May 4, 2014

 
• Miller Lite

The force is strong with this one. pic.twitter.com/hiIiGQxHYA

— Miller Lite (@MillerLite) May 4, 2014

 
• Vans

The Vans office has been invaded by the Imperial Army! #vansxstarwars #maythefourthbewithyou https://t.co/Pq4PsUTajJ http://t.co/6POsLPIZBs

— Vans (@VANS_66) May 4, 2014

 
• Lego

Relax…and #MayThe4thBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/Y0M9580QCc

— The LEGO Group (@LEGO_Group) May 4, 2014

 
• Dove Men+Care

#MayTheFourth pic.twitter.com/2rREAeqn5R

— Dove Men+Care (@DoveMenCare) May 4, 2014

 
• KFC

May the fourth be with you. https://t.co/OA7ax58Md8

— KFC (@kfc) May 4, 2014

 
• Pei-Wei

May the 4th Be With You! #starwarsday #maythe4thbewithyou #PeiWeiFortunes pic.twitter.com/LRlt0e2eqo

— PeiWei (@PeiWei) May 4, 2014

 
• Totino's

A LONG TIME AGO IN AN OVEN FAR, FAR AWAY… @starwars #MayThe4thBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/Bd2xCCGkEQ

— Pete Zaroll (@totinos) May 4, 2014

 
• Dr Pepper

May the 4th be with you today, and the Pepper be with you always. pic.twitter.com/of64wD8iLZ

— Dr Pepper (@drpepper) May 4, 2014

 
• Pillsbury

May the 4th be with you! pic.twitter.com/L4e9msWAdf

— Pillsbury (@Pillsbury) May 4, 2014

 
• Subway

Eat fresh, you will. #StarWarsDay pic.twitter.com/91tXQIQcFe

— SUBWAY Restaurants (@SUBWAY) May 4, 2014

 
• United

#maythefourthbewithyou pic.twitter.com/hmEhbkD4Sk

— United (@united) May 4, 2014

 
• Delta

Guiding the force 24/7. #StarWarsDay #MayThe4thBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/jeRkqTSSrn

— Delta (@Delta) May 4, 2014

 
• Oreo

This milk was way too cold for a golden bikini. #MayThe4th pic.twitter.com/vRtOewcgCM

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) May 4, 2014

 
• Macy's

May the Fourth be with you! #StarWarsDay http://t.co/idwDeMbopL pic.twitter.com/xJee8OUzjH

— Macy's (@Macys) May 4, 2014

 
• Cinnabon

Princess Leia has a rockin’ bun hairdo. #HappyStarWarsDay pic.twitter.com/SdL29WNXGs

— Cinnabon (@Cinnabon) May 4, 2014

 
• Sears

"In a galaxy far, far away" #MayTheFourth #StarWars http://t.co/vpLyOTXDcP pic.twitter.com/dn4cUNy6eP

— Sears (@Sears) May 4, 2014

 
• Whole Foods

May the Fourth be with you pic.twitter.com/evbxswyrWf

— Whole Foods Market (@WholeFoods) May 4, 2014

 
• Toys R Us

That new Stormtrooper kind of stands out! Happy Star Wars Day! #MayTheFourthBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/UGwnZvZdsV

— ToysRUs (@ToysRUs) May 4, 2014

 
• Dairy Queen

Happy #NATLStarWarsDay! May the 4th be with you. #LOVEmyDQ pic.twitter.com/Vu5Rh5GRB1

— Dairy Queen (@DairyQueen) May 4, 2014

 
• Cap'n Crunch

Want to learn the Crunch? Help you, I can. #MayTheFourthBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/B8neyWbHqh

— Cap'n Crunch (@RealCapnCrunch) May 4, 2014

 
• Lucky Charms

The Force is strong with this one. #StarWarsDay pic.twitter.com/anTOMkGMy1

— Lucky Charms (@LuckyCharms) May 4, 2014

 
• Betty Crocker

#Maythe4thBeWithYou, pancake lovers! Check out these beauties by @randomtoons! #StarWarsDay http://t.co/wNPTpOKUDb pic.twitter.com/7WfnxVeUhz

— Betty Crocker (@BettyCrocker) May 4, 2014

 
• Carbonite

These Buns Back Up! Carbonite wishes you a happy May the Fourth! http://t.co/LcrTQIPyQ6 #MayThe4thBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/Dopkd5eTim

— Carbonite (@Carbonite) May 4, 2014

 
• Café Bustelo

Trust your instincts. pic.twitter.com/lGKsZLLJjc

— Cafe Bustelo (@CafeBustelo) May 4, 2014

 
• Coffee-mate

RT & tell us what intergalactic character is your favorite? #MayThe4thBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/PQIbfEezNc

— Coffee-mate (@Coffee_mate) May 4, 2014

• Applebee's

#HappyStarWarsDay pic.twitter.com/R0ZFfsb7Ju

— Applebee's (@Applebees) May 4, 2014