BentoBox

Lowe's #fixinsix Vine Video Series Offers Consumers Useful Household Tips

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:47:00 -0700

Most brands haven’t embraced Vine yet or have only dipped their toes with silly experimental videos. But a few brands have begun using the new platform, which launched in January 2013, creatively and effectively. Lowe’s and its agency partner BBDO realized Vine was a good way to extend its “Sharable Solutions” Facebook campaign, which provided consumers with household tips.

Lowe’s and BBDO examined which tips could translate best into six second Vine videos and named the video series campaign #fixinsix. They started with 12 videos. One of the Vine videos (pictured above) teaches consumers how to remove a stripped screw. Another showed how to easily remove a product sales tag sticker from a coffee cup.

To see the coffee cup sticker removal video and learn more about Lowe’s #fixinsix campaign, read Ragan’s “Lowe’s delivers household tips in Vine videos.”

Webtrends Gets Creative With #didyouseethat Hashtag & Shiny Shoes Campaign

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:44:17 -0700

Who says B2C brands have all the fun?! We are constantly seeing creative and fun social media campaigns and promotions from consumer brands, but it’s not everyday that you see it from a B2B company. Webtrends, a digital marketing and intelligence company, knocked it out of the ballpark with its #didyouseethat Hashtag & Shiny Shoes Campaign during SES New York (SESNY).

The campaign was attention-grabbing, creative and fun. It entailed four colorful and shiny sneakers and the hashtag #didyouseethat. SESNY attendees had to find the shoes, tweet a picture of the shoes with the #didyouseethat hashtag and they were entered into a sweepstakes to win a grand prize, which was “a chance to design your own sneakers; a $500 airline gift card; and a free Platinum Pass to an upcoming SES show.”

The beauty of the campaign is that Webtrends did not push any marketing messages or corporate pitches and instead focused on the user’s experience. The campaign was wildly successful.

To read more about it and a case study with ROI results, read ClickZ: How a Hashtag and Shiny Shoes Brought B2B Social to Life at #SESNY

Indy 500 Fires Up Its Engine With #Indy500orBust Instagram Promotion

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:53:17 -0800

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS), home of the Indy 500, is getting ready to roll out its new promotion #Indy500orBust campaign, which will be hosted on Instagram and a microsite. It will also be used and promoted across Indy 500’s other social channels. The campaign includes a sweepstakes component for those who post photos to Instagram using the #Indy500orBust hashtag. The winner will receive a VIP Experience to the 2014 Indianapolis 500.

This campaign is more than just another sweepstakes, it’s designed to provide a platform for the Indy 500 community of fans, drivers, teams and IMS to come together and share in the experience. The microsite will also house an interactive map that will display “photos from INDYCAR drivers, teams, the IZOD IndyCar Series, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and other fans from around the world,” according to the #Indy500orBust microsite.

The promo is a good way to build excitement prior to the race, increase ticket sales, and provide a place for the community to connect and share with each other. It’s also a great avenue for IMS to interact with its fans and develop stronger relationships with top fans and race attendees.

An exact launch date has not been set, but it’s expected to be live by the second week of March when IMS begins its big promotional push for the Indy 500. The race festivities start on May 11 and run through race day on May 26, 2013.

IMS partnered with Venueseen and is using Venueseen’s API for the #Indy500orBust Instagram promo. Venueseen helps brands utilize visual marketing to build relationships with their customers.

To learn more about this campaign, read ClickZ’s “Indy 500 Revs Up for Instagram Promo.”

Esurance's "SXSW Dream Gig" Contest Seeks To Find A Socially Savvy Storyteller To Cover SXSW

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:33:00 -0800

Auto insurance company Esurance launches the “SXSW Dream Gig” contest. Its looking for a socially savvy storyteller who is “inspired by technology, tapped into music and moved by film,” and who wants to be the Esurance correspondent at this year’s South by Southwest Conference and Festivals (SXSW), March 8-17, 2013.

Esurance is hosting the contest on Facebook where entrants have to “like” the Esurance Facebook page and then enter via the SXSW Dream Gig Facebook contest page. The first phase of the contest runs through January 25, 2013, at which point the judges will then select three finalists by February 1st. The finalists will each have to create a video demonstrating why they’re “the perfect SXSW correspondent,” according to the contest overview and official rules. The next phase of the contest is the public voting phase where Facebook users will vote for their favorite finalist. The public voting phase runs from February 15th through the 22nd.

The winner will receive a Platinum badge to SXSW; roundtrip air travel to Austin, TX; a 10-night hotel stay at the Hilton Austin; an iPad; a $2,000 stipend and will be the official SXSW correspondent for Esurance.

SXSW is a fun-filled conference with non-stop action. It really is a tech, music and film lover’s dream to have an opportunity to see the latest indie films, bands and social apps; and interview the hottest actors, up and coming indie bands and singer-songwriters, and social media entrepreneurs and celebs. If you’re socially savvy and good on camera and love tech, music and film, then this is truly your “Dream Gig.”

It’ll be interesting to see the results from this campaign from how many entrants and votes the contest gets to how many video views and social media buzz and mentions Esurance gets during this year’s SXSW.

We-Care.com To Donate $100k to Charities Through Its #MillionDimes Charity Challenge

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 21:20:51 -0800

We-Care.com, a cause marketing platform, launched it’s #MillionDimes Charity Challenge this week. It’s a fun and simple campaign hosted on Twitter. Twitter users simply have to follow @WeCare and send a tweet that includes the twitter handle of their non-profit of choice, @WeCare and the #MillionDimes hashtag. That’s it! Every tweet is a vote toward your favorite charity. However, the charity must first register at http://www.We-Care.com/MillionDimes. As of this writing, there were 635 non-profits registered.

For each qualifying #MillionDimes tweet, We-Care.com will donate ten cents, up to $1,000 per charity. You can tweet up to five times a day. The campaign runs until next Monday, January 14 at 12:00 PM PST.

Non-profits are funded through donations so in these economic times, every dime counts. So start tweeting to help your favorite charity!

Grand Marnier Gets Into The Holiday Spirit With Its Second Annual Grand Giving Tree Campaign

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 14:44:00 -0800

It’s the season of giving and spirit brand Grand Marnier is sharing in the joy with its second annual Grand Giving Tree campaign hosted on Facebook (via a Facebook app). How it works is fans can select from one of three holiday ornaments and place them on the virtual Giving Tree. Each ornament represents a charitable organizations: Best Friends Animal Society, Earth Day Network, Surfrider Foundation.

The charity with the most ornaments on December 31, 2012 will receive $20,000, while the remaining two organizations will receive $5,000 each. As if helping out your favorite charity wasn’t enough, Grand Marnier is also giving participants of the Grand Giving Tree a chance to win $1,000. There’s one hiccup, fans who are California residents are not eligible for the contest portion due to the State of California laws. However, California fans can still participate in voting for their favorite charity in the Grand Giving Tree.

After you vote and hang your ornament on the Grand Giving Tree for your selected charity, you can also view the ornament count to see which charity currently has the most votes. I won’t spoil it for you by telling you who is in the lead, but I will tell you who I voted for.

As an animal lover, I voted for Best Friends Animal Society. Who will you be voting for?

Oreo, Always A Good Time

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:09:29 -0700

Oreo is a brand that knows how to keep their fans happy. The Oreo cookie is a product that just about everyone loves and they’re always keeping things fresh on their social channels. I headed over to Oreo’s Facebook page tonight to see what they did this year to celebrate Halloween.

Of course they had their classic oreo cookie photo with a witch on her broom (love it). But they also had a lot of other fun posts leading up to Halloween. They shared fun photos of “spooky treats” to help give fans some yummy ideas to make for their own Halloween celebrations.

And who doesn’t love a good corn field maze at Halloween?! Oreo and Regal Farm teamed up to create quite the corn maze — Regal Corn Maze. One could certainly get lost in it.

On its Facebook page, Oreo shared an aerial shot of the corn maze that reads “Oreo 100th Birthday” on the left side of the maze, and “Celebrate the Kid Inside” on the right side, and below at what looks like the corn maze’s entrance reads “Regal Farm.” I’m sure it was a lot of fun for the people who were able to get lost in it; and for those of us who couldn’t, seeing the aerial shot of it was pretty cool, too.

Oreo’s 100th birthday celebration year has been filled with lots of creative fun. I look forward to seeing what they do next!

Pacific Natural Foods Celebrates 100,000 Facebook Fans With A 'Thank You' Giveaway To Fans

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:30:34 -0700

Reaching Facebook milestones are always fun and what better way to celebrate it than with a giveaway that says “Thank You” to the fans that helped you reach the milestone. Today, Pacific Natural Foods is doing just that with a product giveaway.

In celebration of reaching 100,000 Facebook fans, Pacific Natural Foods is saying “thank you” to its fans with a giveaway where 10 lucky fans will be selected and will have their pantries stocked with $200 worth of their favorite Pacific Natural Foods products.

If you’re anything like me and care about what you put into your body, then you may want to venture over to Pacific Natural Foods’ Facebook page and enter for a chance to win some deliciously healthy foods. Of course if you’re not a fan already, then be sure to like their Facebook Page. You’ll be glad you did because they share lots of yummy foods and are great with engaging with fans.

For example, they recently shared a photo of tomatoes with a status update of “I’d say I had a successful tomato harvest this weekend! What are your favorite ways to use tomatoes?” and that prompted one of their fans to share a photo of her tomato harvest. In which, Pacific Natural Foods then shared the fan’s photo with other fans on its Facebook Timeline. It’s not only a great example of fan engagement, but a great example of a brand that appreciates its fans and customers.

Congratulations to Pacific Natural Foods for reaching 100,000 fans!

Hasbro's My Little Pony #MLPWedding Twitter Party Trends On Twitter

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 16:14:37 -0700

Brands continue to leverage mommy bloggers and social media influencers to spread the word about products, services and events. The latest example was last Friday when Hasbro’s My Little Pony, the beloved 1980s cartoon, sponsored a Twitter party hosted by lead blogger at Mom Spark, Amy Bellgardt, who is @MomSpark on Twitter. The above image is a sampling of a few tweets during yesterday’s My Little Pony (MLP) Twitter party, which used the hashtag #MLPWedding.

Twitter parties are very popular among moms, and given that moms are the main shoppers in many households, one can see how this is a desirable consumer group for brands to court. For sponsored Twitter parties, most have some sort of giveaway tied to them as an incentive to participate. In the case of last Friday’s My Little Pony Twitter Party, Hasbro gave away, via its host @MomSpark, MLP toys.

The purpose behind it was to not only promote and discuss MLP, but also to promote an encore presentation of the special two-part royal wedding episode of “My Little Pony Friendship is Magic,” which was shown today, Saturday, September 8 at 10:00 AM EDT on the Hub TV network.

Twitter parties are effective in that they bring together a group of consumers who are already passionate about a particular product or topic, provide an opportunity for brands to share product information and features in an authentic manner through the hosts, brand ambassadors and fans, and they offer brands an opportunity to reach new consumers.

Since Twitter parties are held at a specific date and time that’s pre-publicized and usually last for an hour or two, it lends itself to the opportunity to have the Twitter parties’ hashtags trend locally, nationally or worldwide. In the case of Friday’s MLP Twitter party, the #MLPWedding hashtag successfully trended nationally, according to Bellgardt’s tweet, “Thank you for attending our My Little Pony Twitter party today - we trended in the USA! #MLPWedding http://fb.me/27CNdOzIF.”

Before Twitter parties hit the Twittersphere, there were Twitter chats aka “Tweetchats” or “Twitchats,” which still exist today and there are many weekly Tweet chats for all kinds of topics and interests. Twitter parties are an extension of Tweet chats, which are similar in format, but usually Tweet chats are topic based and not brand/product focused and they usually don’t do product giveaways like Twitter parties do.

One doesn’t have to look far to see that Twitter parties are quite successful. In a post by Clickz, it states that “MomSpark has hosted around 100 Twitter Parties over a little more than two years.” Now that’s a lot of Twitter parties!

Ben & Jerry's 'Wanna Spoon' App Invites You To Spoon With Your Facebook Friends

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:33:21 -0700

To promote its Greek Frozen Yogurt, Ben & Jerry’s has introduced a new Facebook app, Wanna Spoon?. It invites you to ‘spoon’ with your Facebook friends. The app’s algorithm finds things you have in common with your Facebook friends, from favorite TV shows and bands to foods and family members. It then finds your perfect spooning partner and let’s you download a coupon and share it with your spooning partner by posting a link on their Facebook Timeline along with a provided message, “Using a fancy algorithm, Ben & Jerry’s decided we’d make great spooning partners.”

Ben & Jerry’s tapped ad agency Amalgamated and production partner Tool of North America to create the app, according to Mashable.

Who doesn’t love ‘spooning’? Reconnect with old friends and spoon together with some Ben & Jerry’s Greek Frozen Yogurt. Now that’s an app that’s deliciously fun!

Oreo Celebrates Gay Pride On Its Social Media Channels, Sees Spike In Engagement

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:25:00 -0700

June is Pride month for the Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Transgender (LGBT) community and yesterday Oreo celebrated it with a Facebook page post and tweet. Both posts included a festive and fun picture of a rainbow Oreo cookie. For the Facebook post, the status update on the post read, “Proudly support love!” and the tweet read, “Celebrate your pride for love! #dailytwist http://pic.twitter.com/ryqS3HyK.”

The Pride image is part of a bigger campaign to celebrate Oreo’s 100th birthday. An Oreo representative provided a statement about the campaign to Mashable, which Mashabale included today in its post about Oreo’s Pride post:

In celebration of the 100th birthday of Oreo cookies, the brand is creating a series of daily ads reflecting current events in a fun way using images of Oreo cookies and milk. These ads are in the same style of the print advertising campaign for Oreo’s 100th Birthday that launched earlier this year. The new campaign will bring to life trending topics, pop culture news, milestones or celebrations using images of the iconic cookie and milk. In recognition of Pride Month, Oreo created an ad depicting the Rainbow flag with different colors of Oreo crème. We are excited to illustrate what is making history today in a fun and playful way. You can follow Oreo on Facebook to see the daily ads.

As a company, Kraft Foods has a proud history of celebrating diversity and inclusiveness. We feel the OREO ad is a fun reflection of our values.

As of this writing the Pride tweet has garnered 1,338 retweets and 440 favorites and the Facebook post has garnered 173,403 likes, 51,219 shares and 23,863 comments. The Pride post’s engagement is higher than the average engagement on Oreo’s other posts and it will certainly help Oreo’s EdgeRank, as well as its reach.

The public may be divided on some LGBT issues, such as the right to marry, but despite the politics around such controversial issues, many consumers support the LGBT community and will rally around initiatives such as the Oreo Pride post or the recent Gay Father’s Day ad by JCPenney. Plus, the LGBT community may only make up a small percentage of the population, but they’re organized and vocal and can garner a lot of support. And let’s not forget that many LGBT consumers have lots of disposable income, something very desirable to brands.

Of course there will always be those consumers who take offense and call for a boycott, so brands do risk losing some customers. However, in many cases, companies gain new customers due to the attention a campaign receives and brands also gain stronger brand support from existing customers.

I think it’s smart for companies/brands to support the LGBT community and find creative and fun ways to celebrate Pride, such as Oreo did. Sure, there will always be some haters who disagree, but most people rally around companies/brands who take a stand in support of the LGBT community. Hats off to Oreo for it’s Pride posts and support of the LGBT community!

RELATED STORIES:
LA Times: Gay-pride support: Good for business?
AllFacebook: Oreo Supports LGBT Pride On Facebook Page

Gold Peak Tea's "Take The Year Off" Campaign Offers Facebook Fans A Chance To Pursue Their Dream with $100,000

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:05:34 -0700

Gold Peak Tea, a Coca-Cola brand, has launched a new campaign on Facebook entitled “Take The Year Off” where it offers fans a chance to win $100,000 to pursue their dream. That dream could be to simply take a year off and relax or it could be to start a new business venture or pursue a creative endeavor such as making a film, writing a book or making an album and getting it sold on iTunes or Amazon. Whatever the dream, people have until July 13th at 11:59pm EDT to enter.

The mechanics of the “Take The Year Off” Facebook campaign require entrants to “like” the page, complete the registration form, which includes providing a valid email. After that each entrant has to then answer two short questions (140 characters each), write a brief essay (1,500 characters) explaining what they would do if they were given the opportunity to take a year off with a $100,000 salary, and submit a recent and “recognizable photo” of themselves. The brand will select the top entries.

The top candidates selected become the semi-finalists and move into the next phase of the campaign. Each semi-finalist will be required to submit a 30-60 second video that fits the campaign’s theme of “Enjoying the Comforts of Home.” The videos are then judged on the following criteria: 1) Compelling Quality of Submission (33%); 2) Creativity/Originality of Submission (33%); and 3) Fit to Promotion Theme of Enjoying the Comforts of Home (34%). Based on that criteria the brand picks the top finalists.

The last phase of the campaign is public voting, where the public gets to vote on their favorite video and finalist submission. The finalist with the most valid votes will become the grand prize winner and will get to take the year off with a salary of $100,000. In addition, the campaign also includes a sweepstakes for the fans who vote. The sweepstakes prize is four tickets to a Live Nation concert, which includes roundtrip air travel for four and three nights’ hotel accommodations. The voting and sweepstakes phase of the campaign runs from August 6-24, 2012.

The campaign platform/provider is ePrize, a leader in interactive promotions and loyalty programs.

In general, video contests tend to garnish the lowest amount of entries compared to other contests and sweepstakes where there’s a lower point of entry, such as entering a name and email only. However, given the attractiveness of the prize and the fact that the video portion is only one component of many, I suspect that Gold Peak Tea’s “Take The Year Off” campaign will do quite well. They were smart to add the sweepstakes component, which will increase the total number of votes and overall participation in the campaign.

What would you do if you could take a year off with a salary of $100,000?

Southwest Airlines #AtlantaAtLast Peach Spotting Contest Celebrates Its Newest Destination

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:57:00 -0800

Southwest Airlines launched a fun contest to celebrate its newest destination, Atlanta. The contest is taking place today in five cities that will be the first of Atlanta’s inbound/outbound markets, which are Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, and Houston.

The airline has “unleased” five peaches — a person in a peach costume — in each of the cities. How one enters is the person has to figure out the location of where the peach will be and then take a picture with the peach and tweet the photo. The tweet has to include Southwest’s twitter handle @SouthwestAir and the hashtag #AtlantaAtLast.

Southwest has provided clues and times to help people know where the peach will show up. One of the clues for Chicago is “A mile so magnificent, you’d better bring your wallet.”

If you’re interested in learning more about this campaign, read Southwest’s blog post: CONTEST ALERT: Spot the Peach

Pillsbury's "Memories Made Easy" Holiday Campaign Gets Personal

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:07:57 -0800

Shortly before Thanksgiving, Pillsbury launched its Memories Made Easy website where fans can create a personalized video that incorporates their photos with the adorable Pillsbury Doughboy. The 30-second video includes a graphic at the end where fans can select one of four holiday greetings: Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah or Happy New Year. It also includes a sound track, which is an upbeat song called Home by Andrew Simple. For viewers who like the song, there’s a link on the page to download it from iTunes.

The process is simple and fast. Fans simply upload six of their photos, select one of the four holiday greetings, type in their name and it then quickly creates a personalized holiday video that fans can then share with family and friends via email, Facebook and Twitter. The user does have to be 18 years old, which is verified by entering date of birth before the user can upload his or her photos.

This is a fun example and a great way of extending an existing campaign or traditional television commercial into a brand’s social channels while engaging fans, and in this case, giving them a fun way to send holiday greetings online.

The only feature that I would have liked to of seen included is the ability to get the video’s embed code so you can embed it elsewhere, such as a blog. However, since they don’t have that feature I’m unable to embed the video that I created but I will share the link to it. Check out my Pillsbury holiday video that I made using photos of my pets: http://bit.ly/vr99j5

And if you’re interested in learning more about this campaign, read Ragan.com’s Pillsbury video campaign stars the Doughboy and fans’ photos

Sheets Brand Launches Facebook Video Contest, Winning Video Will Be Featured on National Television

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:55:14 -0800

Sheets Brand, makers of edible energy strips packed with B vitamins and caffeine, launched a new video contest on its Facebook brand Page calling for video submissions from its fans. The brand also has brought on NBA star LeBron James as a judge for the contest. The winning video will be featured on national television and in movie theaters.

For more on the video contest, read AllFacebook.com’s LeBron James Will Judge Facebook Ad Competition

Samuel Gordon Jewelers Kicks Off the Holiday Season with "Pin To Win" Pinterest Contest

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 15:13:31 -0800

With the holiday shopping season now underway many stores and brands are conducting holiday giveaways to garner attention, interest and boost the bottom line before the year ends. One that caught my eye is from Samuel Gordon Jewelers because it’s the first that I’ve seen to use the new photo-sharing social network Pinterest in a fun and creative way.

Samuel Gordon’s “Pin To Win” contest, which ends tomorrow, will giveaway a $500 gift certificate to one lucky winner. How one enters is they have to go to Samuel Gordon’s website and pick out jewelry that they like and “pin it” on Pinterest and hashtag it with #samuelgordons. And the more you “pin” the better your chances of winning.

I checked it out and sure enough, it was easy to enter. I picked a Tag Heuer watch on Samuel Gordon’s website and then clicked the Pinterest “Pin It” button that they had on the right side of the page and then a popup window came up, which allowed me to enter the #samuelgordons hashtag and then I “pinned” it. Simple.

It’s a great contest idea because it’s fun for participants who love jewelry and sharing photos, but more importantly, they’ve made it simple to enter and it encourages people to share Samuel Gordon’s offerings at a time when many people are shopping for gifts and the #samuelgordons Pinterest page is basically a photo gallery filled with lots of great gift ideas for those who love jewelry and watches.

Given the volume of entries, I’d say it looks like a successful contest for Samuel Gordon Jewelers and the first I’ve seen that utilizes Pinterest in a fun way for a contest.

American Airlines Announces its MEGA VIP Video Blogger contest on its AAdvantage Facebook brand page

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 10:49:43 -0800

On Friday, American Airlines (AA) announced its MEGA VIP Video Blogger contest on its AAdvantage Facebook brand page calling for video bloggers to submit a 30-60 second video that includes three items delivered in a creative manner. The three criteria are: 1) why the blogger should be selected as AA’s official video blogger for the MegaDo trip, which is a four-day trip that starts in Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas (DFW airport), stops in Seattle for a visit to Boeing, and ends in Los Angeles, CA (LAX airport) with a stay at Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in LA; 2) which leg of the trip is most exciting to the blogger; and the third criterion is for the blogger to share a little bit about who they are.

The contest is designed to drive new Facebook fans and AAdvantage memberships since people have to like the Facebook brand page to participate, and on the contest landing tab/page there’s an offer for non-AAdvantage members to sign up and receive 500 bonus miles for signing up using the offer code OWMGD. In addition to the grand prize, the top five entries will receive 25,000 miles on their AAdvantage membership.

In general, video contests tend to get the lowest amount of entries among contests and sweepstakes because of the higher barrier of entry due to the skill and time that’s involved to produce a video. Sweepstakes that are promoted on Facebook brand pages where one only has to “Like” the page and provide their name and email seem to get the highest level entries.

However, for those fans who do enter video contests run by brands, they have a greater chance of winning given there’s less competition. So for eager fans it’s a great way to win a prize; and for brands it’s a great way for them to get fans to submit user generated content that hopefully delivers information about the brand in a fun and entertaining manner that compels viewers to share it with their friends, and therefore, those videos have the opportunity to go viral and extend the reach of the contest and campaign’s message.

If you decide to conduct a video contest for your brand and don’t see a large volume of entries, do not consider it unsuccessful because historically most brands do not experience a high number of entries like they do with sweepstakes that require very little on the entrant’s part. Video contests are more challenging, but they’re an excellent way to acquire creative user generated content with viral potential and new fan/customer acquisition.

Last year Fidelity Investments conducted their “Be The Green Line” video contests on YouTube where entrants had to submit a video that creatively demonstrated being the “green line” and delivered Fidelity’s message to stay on the green line, meaning to save and invest wisely. The video contest was tied into Fidelity’s “Turn Here” advertising campaign that also incorporated the green line, which represents, according to its video contest launch press release, ”the firm’s ability to help investors navigate all stages of life with financial guidance and appropriate investment options.”

The winning video was very well done and as of this writing has received 3,007 views (watch below). Click here to learn more about AA’s MEGA VIP Video Blogger video contest.

Mercedes-Benz Facebook Fans Can Now Star In Their Own 'Drive & Seek' Adventure

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:22:00 -0800

Earlier this year, Mercedes-Benz introduced Drive & Seek, a short film promoting the C-Class Coupe (see trailer below). The luxury automobile maker has now introduced Drive & Seek - The Prologue, a Facebook game and mobile app that let’s fans star in their own Drive & Seek adventure.

The Drive & Seek movie is a James Bond-like adventure about a bank robbery that’s filled with beautiful women, gangsters and fast cars; however, the chase scenes are missing car crashes and explosions, two (expensive) elements that are key to action films.

Drive & Seek - The Prologue game extends this adventure to Facebook fans where they can embark on their own adventure by taking part in three missions where the player is challenged to “outsmart the security system, find the right way to the safe and work out which picture is the priceless masterpiece.”

First is “Ivy’s Mission” where the player has to find a safe route through a maze without running into a guard. Next is “Dorothy’s Mission” where the player has to outsmart the security system by playing a trivia game. The last mission is “Mira’s Mission” where the player is presented with a picture scramble and has to spot the picture that’s the correct priceless piece of art.

According to Ragan.com, Mercedes hasn’t released figures on the number of players. But given it’s Facebook brand page is approaching 4.2 million fans, there’s a good chance that a large number of fans will take the game for a test drive. The YouTube Drive & Seek trailer has 111,676 views (as of this writing) and the short film, also on YouTube, has 140,478 views.

For more on the campaign and game, read Ragan.com’s Mercedes turns Facebook fans into spy-movie stars.

Chevy Launches New Lifestyle Twitter Handle @ChevyLife

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:45:00 -0700

I just saw a tweet from @Chevrolet reading “We’re ready to share our #Chevy love. Follow @ChevyLife for #lifestyle updates and be part of the new experience” so I click on over to find that Chevy has just launched the new Twitter handle @ChevyLive.

According to the newly launched @ChevyLife profile page, it will focus on lifestyle and life’s first moments. The twitter bio reads “Making the most of life’s first moments. Experience the drive of your life with Chevy”. In addition, the page’s background profile image invites followers to send them a twitpic and they’ll add the image to the @ChevyLife profile page.

Launching a lifestyle handle certainly offers a great opportunity to share fun and interesting content so it will be great to see how the team grows the channel, engages the community and the type of content they share.

Chevy Takes to the Streets and its Social Media Channels for its Centennial Celebration

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 10:54:00 -0700

Chevrolet celebrates its 100th birthday early next month and has embarked on a host of online and offline initiatives to celebrate the big event. Chevy created the “100 Years of Chevrolet” website where it conducted a tournament to find the “Best Chevrolet of All Time” where brand enthusiasts were able to vote for their favorite Chevy cars in a NCAA-type bracket structure until the final winner was selected. And the winner is…. The Best Chevy of All Time.

On its Facebook brand page, Chevy created a special Chevy Centennial Facebook reveal tab/page focused on the centennial celebration that encourages fan participation and storytelling through videos, a section where fans can upload a photo of their Chevy, a link to the Chevy Centennial Station, which is an exclusive Pandora playlist of the top 100 Chevy songs, and a host of other features and offerings.

They also promoted its annual event, Woodward Dream Cruise, on its Facebook page and across twitter where they leveraged employees, partners, fans and others to tweet and blog about the event.

From the event they produced a video (see below) specifically for its social channels that highlights the annual event through a touching story of a woman who attended it as a child with her dad and was selected to be in this year’s Woodward Dream Cruise parade driving her Chevy with her two children.

For more details on Chevy’s social initiatives for its centennial celebration, read: Chevy revs up social media sites to celebrate its centennial