Big Mac & Apple Pie

Hip-hop artist/producer/stylista Pharell at the Paris Charles deGaulle airport starts singing and dancing just to get food at McDonald's is the very best kind of customer "Lovemarks". Somebody being there with a video-cam makes it perfect. McDonald's should be ecstatic and maybe they are. Let's not forget that Pharell, unlike some other hip-hop artist, is a real cool guy and all in all likable human being. If only the employees in Golden Arches uniforms would have shared some of the enthusiasm for their product shown by Pharell.

My Name is Bond, James Bond and I wear Baltman

What's going on here? When most brands in a whole wide world are directing their ad and marketing campaigns towards sensibility right now, Baltman is taking the opposite approach, by telling us that if we wear their suits we are not only gonna look good, but also gonna get laid. A lot. Beautiful women, even better, beautiful women in pairs and blindfolded, will become our sex-slaves.



All this because I'll be wearing Baltman clothes? Well it better happen. I'm taking your word for it and buying it. Plus I will complain if it does not happen. Complain a lot.



I'm as kinky as the next guy, willing to roll with the best of them, but the last picture gives me the creeps. Once again Baltman you better deliver on your promise.

@savisaar - To Tweet or not To Tweet...

...that is the question and the answer for you @savisaar is a simple NO. Whoever is in charge of your Social Media or Online Media or Earned Media tactics unfortunately does not have any kind of understanding what Social Networks are all about. Sure he made you start a blog or at the very least started writing the posts for you, but that's not enough in 2009. Fire him.

Posting links to your blog on your Twitter account is not just beat, it's a pathetic attempt to do something without knowing what you're trying to accomplish. Twitter is not about you, Twitter is about what everybody thinks of you. Make it personal, make it human... OK that'll be hard. Well make it funny then and fire him. Make that announcement your first real Tweet. He is no good at his job. He's work has "me too" attitude written all over it and now so does your Twitter account.

By the way, your Tweets are your voice and right now you're telling everybody that you got nothing to say.

Holy Mess Over the Rainbow - the Future of a Corporate Web-site

Skittles has taken a small step for a candy, but a giant leap for a CPG brand web-site. A click on skittles.com will not take you to a corporate home page in a traditional sense, but instead to Skittles on Facebook. The only thing that has the functions that we have become accustom to on brand web-sites is a small widget in a upper left corner. Clicking on listed products will land you on a product Wikipedia page, so even this is very Social Web.

The rest of the clicks on the widget categories will take you respectively to these: Pictures - Flickr, Videos - YouTube, Chatter - Twitter, Friends - Facebook. So it's all good, somewhat messy, but still good. When I say messy I'm talking about little things that make up the big picture. For example if you search for Skittles on Twitter, you'll end up with 43 results and there's no way to tell which is the actual brand among them. I finally settled for these two - @skittlesrainbow that has 0 updates and @skittles_com that has 126 updates all of them going like this "I'm a Skittles master... get a free Netbook only for Skittles USA/Canada: http://tinyurl.com/bl3yeg #skittles". Not sure which is worst.

Still, is Skittles showing the way for the rest. Is this the future of a corporate web-site? Let's not forget the risk factor that comes with earned media - the social media - the uncontrollable media. For Skittles this undertaking is pretty low risk. When was the last time somebody opened a package of candy and was so disappointed with it's contents that it stayed with him or her for years. At the same time I still remember when an airline refused to let me board a plane with my kids at 6 in a morning. The younger one was only two at the time. Let me see if I can remember the airline, well there's no way I can forget that. SAS.

So here it is. Is this the future? Is this the solution? Is it worth the risks? I think it could be . Even when a Brand drops a ball and really screws a customer and the customer posts all his negative emotions on the brands Facebook wall, it will give the brand an opportunity to engage in a dialog. Not an easy thing to do, but it's better than watching and hearing all these conversations from a sideline.

What do you think?

NB! Oh yeah the picture is one of the results from the Twitter search.