Category Archives: Brands

A couple weeks ago, a quick teaser video emerged on the web and many thought that all signs pointed to the sequel to the classic movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The teaser video simply had Ferris Bueller star, Matthew Broderick emerge from behind a curtain and hint “how could he go to work on a day like this”. The full-length video was supposed to air around the time of this year’s Super Bowl, but according to All Things D’s Lauren Goode, Hawker Media’s car blog Jalopnik, discovered it online last Friday. It seems that the rumors were all wrong…well at least technically. The teaser wasn’t about a movie sequel. Rather, it was a promo spot for a car – the Honda CR-V.

Directed by the writer/director of “The Hangover”, Matthew Broderick pulls a Ferris by calling in sick from his work and does all the things he did in his movie, but with a more modern twist. There’s no more high school in Chicago – he’s now playing himself in real life and avoids work with his agent. Next, instead of the favorite St. Patrick’s Day parade and crooning “Danke Schoen”, he celebrates Chinese New Year (well-timed, by the way). Oh, and the topping on the cake? Remember when Cameron’s car gets stolen by the valets in the movie? Well Broderick’s video has that too, except the valet steals the CR-V.

So the video has been definitely upgraded for the modern times, but I’ll admit that I’m a bit disappointed that it’s not for the next part of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Nevertheless, it is a bit funny and doesn’t necessarily focus on the car, but you do see Broderick driving it around Los Angeles enjoying his day off while reminding us about the cool parts of Broderick’s movie.

Below is the entire YouTube video for your enjoyment.

Broderick? Broderick?

By Julie Blaustein

The Social Media Club Panelists: Moderator Chris Heuer, Peter Kim, Jen McClure and Michael Brito

The Social Media Club of San Francisco held their monthly meeting at PeopleBrowsr offices on Tuesday, May 17th. in SOMA. It was a conversation that included Chris Heuer, Founder of the Social Media Club as Moderator, Peter Kim of Dachis Group, Jen McClure of Thomas Reuters and Michael Brito of Edelman.

There appears to be a shift in the way that companies are messaging themselves; rather than conducting Social Media its preferred to be known as conducting Social Business. Much of the discussion centered around how each of the panelists define social media in terms of their companies and how it relates to social media. All agreed that social media has evolved from when it first came into our consciousnesses around 2004. Brito saw that when it first debuted to companies it was creating chaos but now companies are making sense of it and embracing it. McClure whose company has a large workforce felt that the term itself is being used less and its now more about it becoming part of the social organization and enabling employees to communicate with one another. Kim shared how the social media term is on the “outs” with the story of  how his client, Zappos‘ CEO Tony Hsieh, fined $1 to anyone who even uttered the term social media.

The panelists also shared their own definition of Social Business. Kim saw it similar to how you connect consumers but in the business world. Its how you communicate with employees through technology such as Jive Software that provides social networking, collaboration software, community software and media monitoring. Kim said, it “pains him when people use social business as social media which it is not.” McClure sees social business as a platform to connect and help employers learn from. Brito shared his definition of social business from an infographic that he has created. As he defined it, its the natural evolution that companies go through internally to equip themselves with customers. It starts with the people internally in a company such as the CMO and as a result processes are established within and technology brought on to manage it results.

Google Trend Comparison of Social Media vs. Social Business

A comparison between Social Media and Social Business in terms of search and news interest demonstrated how Social Business is barely a blip, yet its most definitely of importance to those in the enterprise social world. In the end perhaps the discussion was mostly about the semantics of language as it was agreed that social media is the umbrella term, with social business being a niche version of it. Some examples of those companies as seen in the forefront of this focus on Social Busienss were IBM, SAP, Cisco, Intel. Kim though felt at tis time no one is doing Social Business Particularly well but just getting started such as Disney and AT&T. There is still a huge amount of opportunity for companies to join the social world in a business way in the near future.

Join the Conversation with the Social Media Club SF at #SMCSF, view the video and photos from the event.

It is no secret that traditional media has been on the decline since the advent of social media. Consumer trust of traditional media sources, and corresponding advertising spend by businesses, has continued to drop in recent years.

Businesses used to focus their marketing efforts on a few key channels (television, radio, and print). These media have very few decision makers controlling what stories and advertising they run, and it’s easy to identify who these influencers are. In social media, figuring out who matters most can be a daunting task.

The influencers (the people affecting our actions) are found in our network. They are the friends, celebrities, and other trusted sources that we follow. Sometimes, they are even you or me.

Here is a video outlining four rules that businesses can follow when determining who the influencers in their market are today:

Who influencers your decisions? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Disclosure: In addition to being a contributor to Bubblicious, I also work at FutureWorks. The above video was commissioned by mBLAST, a FutureWorks client.

By Julie Blaustein

PR Summit Boot Camp, produced by Shaun Saunders of Graffiti PR and held in San Francisco, brought together experienced speakers in the PR world who provided great tips and insights into how the media and you should be embracing today’s changing landscape. The old and the new protocols of PR 2.0 are starting to blend and with it are new ways of going about doing the business of PR. At the end of the day, it was agreed by all that the key to successful PR is to create, foster and engage your personal and your businesses contacts along with those in your community to create your networks both online and offline.

Social Media & New Media Protocols Panel

There are a number of tools available at your fingertips to engage in social media. The burning question is, what social media tools are the most productive and which are the time wasters? The Social Media & New Media Protocols panel addressed this by asking the seasoned PR speakers how they go about their day in terms of social media. Myles Weissleder of Mylermedia still feels email is the best tool to focus on to do important communications. “Although its beneficial to check your Facebook and Twitter streams numerous times a day, doing so can take up all your time. And if your network is large, it can be like a fire-hose providing you too much useless information.” Daniel Lemin, formerly of PainePR and now the founder of Social-Studio digests his daily news through newsletters which he considers the most credible source of information. He then turns to his Twitter and Facebook streams but strictly for business, to seek out information about his own campaigns. His tools of choice include Hootsuite, TweetDeck, LinkedIn, Cadmus along with in-house proprietary tools. Preston Lewis of Bonfire Communications uses social media throughout the day to build awareness of events to come that night. “My personal and professional lives are blurred on Facebook while Twitter is strictly professional.” And Ryan Singel of Wired.com’s Threat Level views navigating websites as the best source of information and starts his day off by viewing numerous content aggregators through open tabs. He also finds Flipboard and the search engine Duck Duck Go most useful.

Facebook’s Manager of Corporate Communications, Matt Hicks, shared how to grow a company’s fan page. He used Facebook’s own Fan Page as an example of a successful Fan Page. It was launched after the Haiti Disaster and already has 14.8 million people who have Liked its fan page, 9 million monthly actives and 1 million daily actives. It has been promoted in organic ways such as through photos, videos, a link to its blog and is always creating fresh content. Each time you publish an update on your Fan Page with  photos, videos or links it will automatically go out into the News Feeds of all your fans creating not only virality but enabling your content to be searched and found by others. In addition, sharing content on YouTube and Twitter and directing users back to your Facebook Fan page also keeps them engaged.

Akilah Bolden-Monifa, Director of Communications with CBS5 | The CW44 cable 12 and CBS Radio has had decades of experience in the media. Although she receives tons of pitches through Twitter, FB and email for news reports, the reality is that most of the news comes from the wire services. If you are going to do a pitch, she suggests to keep it simple and keep in mind the basic 5 W’s – Who, What, When, Where and Why. To her, the Press Release is dead and ineffective for getting press. She toots the horn for Twitter. Being brief and to the point might get her attention while long wordy press releases, especially with attachments, will most definitely not get her attention.

The Old Spice campaign was brought up numerous times throughout the day as a great example of how using Social Media has revived an old brand. We all associate it with the smell of our grandfather so how did it become the phenomena it has become? Thanks to the cunning creativity of the ad agency Wieden + Kennedy and the help of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, millions of people have viewed the campaign. Daniel Lemin summed the hit as a result of them taking risks and pushing boundaries. “They factored into their campaign that people want to be entertained, add that with the shock factor and you have a HIT.

Much more was discussed at the PR Summit Bootcamp and it was all captured on Justin TV. And check out Amie Vaccaro’s great summary of the confrerence in, “Graffiti PR’s 12 Tips for reaching Your Audience.”

Speakers Teresa Rodriquez, Alkilah Bolden-Monifa and Liana Burtsava

Myles Weissleder, Shaun Saunders and Leyla Fara

Ryan Singel of Wired.com's Threat Level

PR Summit Bootcamp Audience

Flickr cc: Tramidepain

Robert Polet, CEO Gucci, has famously said:

“We are not selling handbags or shoes. We are selling dreams. That market will always be there.”

While the statement still holds the truth, what’s hot and what’s not in the world of fashion is no longer decided by the few and privileged ones. The social web is changing the rules, by giving independent fashionistas the voice and the tools to get recognized for their own individual taste. As the web and commerce gets more social, so does every step of a decision making process.

Brands are starting to recognize the need of being part of the various stages of decision making process taking place in social networks. Facebook Like button has become the first step to connect with potential customers, and it was only last week Starbucks as the first brand reached more than 10 Million Facebook Likes, and became one of the top ten largest Facebook pages. When it comes to fashion brands, though, one needs to scroll down the list, finding only two fashion brands to make the top 100 list: Victoria’s Secret on place 44 with 5 Million Facebook fans, followed by Converse All Star on place 83 with 3.8 Million fans.

ModCloth, Bloglovin’ and Fashiolista harnessing Likes beyond Facebook

But, not all “liking” happens or is being harnessed on Facebook. ModCloth, San Francisco based indie fashion site featuring vintage-inspired clothing just recently raised $19.8 Million in funding to meet the growing demand of hot fashion items frequently being sold out. ModCloth was early on to recognize and create a marketplace for independent, up and coming designers, reporting $19 Million in sales last year. Influence ranks high among fashionistas, thus by engaging fashion bloggers and fashionistas to become virtual fashion buyers to help ModCloth choose which designs get created, it’s also able to predict the demand much earlier. Watch Eric and Susan Koger, the husband and wife founders of ModCloth, interviewed by Jason Kincaid on TechCrunch TV.

To further interact with fashionistas, ModCloth ran a fashion campaign earlier this year together with Bloglovin’, Swedish blog aggregator startup with 96% female users and 5.5 Million monthly visits. Influential fashion bloggers were chosen by Bloglovin’ to promote fashion items in a transparent and trustworthy way, resulting 5 out 14 items to have been sold out within 24 hours.

Aiming to become the start page for fashion blogging, Bloglovin’ recently also launched a new start page, described as a visual Digg for fashion blogging. By introducing a voting system called “Like”, the most popular blog posts in fashion can now be featured. Bloglovin’ has been picking up steam among fashionistas world wide, overtaking both Style.com and Teenvogue.com with its 1.1 Million monthly unique visitors. Brands like DKNY and Roberto Cavalli have discovered Bloglovin’ to reach out to fashionistas, and H&M has been a frequent advertiser on the site. US fashion bloggers like Fashionchalet and fashiontoast have already created a larger following on Bloglovin’ than for example on Twitter, counting over tens of thousands of followers.

Fashiolista is another European fashion startup from Netherlands, where Likes and “Loves” are everything. It’s a fashion community with a handy bookmarklet tool that lets you collect, save and share all the fashion finds with the rest of the world. One can easily follow other Fashiolistas to get inspired of their fashion sense, as add items from nearly any online fashion shops, such as ModCloth, who has implemented Fashiolista’s bookmarklet. When it will be possible to start subscribing specific tags on Fashiolista, I can see the site getting seriously compelling. Henriette Weber, Danish social media avantgardista and fashionista herself, recently interviewed the founders of Fashiolista.

With help of services like Bloglovin’ and Fashiolista, the life of fashionistas gets easier, when being able to spot the fashion blogs that don’t suck, as to track down the perfect summer season items in the nude.

As for “safe” fashion discovery, I recommend first to head over to Mint Goals to set up your saving plan for all the fashion Likes and Loves. Happy Liking!

More Bub.blicio.us reading on Fashion

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Connect with her on Twitter: @paulamarttila
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com