Must admit I’ve lost most interest with twitter… maybe we’ll reconnect. Somehow I doubt it. This is funny. Ironically, I saw it on Bastholm’s twitter feed… thanks Lars.

/Baek

Yesterday, social media people from around the Danish kingdom gathered in our capital to get a taste of how the big guys from the land that gave us facebook and twitter brew their social media coffee. For two solid hours Matthew Guiste, Director of Global Social Media, Starbucks (US), showed us how you go from dating to having an actual relationship with your customers. With “My Starbucks Idea”, (http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/), the company has taken user engagement to a new level and proven that asking your customers can lead to great product innovation, proud employees and most importantly devoted customers.

This particular case is only one of several great initiatives from the coffeemaker who also had brand lovers from 156 countries singing all time Beatles favorite “All You Need Is Love” simultaneously online – check out the noticeably weird Danish contribution 2 min. into the video, which apparently the most views of all the countries:

However, the big question yesterday was obviously how they’d managed to actually do this. Why do these initiatives become a success? How do you attract and keep 13.928.404 users on your facebook page? What is that secret recipe to actually making social media a brand success? We have books, blogs and newsletters full of pointers and checklists but everybody knows that it’s not enough. What I got from the seminar yesterday was this: A great idea is a good start, almost vital, however the real reason that Starbuck is a success on these platforms is because the entire organization wants this and that this desire to succeed is reflected in the resources allocated to every project. One example is the 40 employees from across the organization that spends 2 hours each week answering suggestions from users on “My Starbucks ideas”. Even more impressing, if it’s decided that an idea is good enough to carry out, the organization is actually able to get things rolling.

Most Danish marketers would immediately dismiss integrating a similar concept, due to lack of resources, i.e. money. This is a shame for two reasons: firstly, the monetary benefit of having loyal and active users is never really discussed or compared to the amount of money spent on paid online advertising. Secondly, companies often fail to accept that “resources” is also about getting management and employees involved and engaged, so that the voice of the company on either facebook or other platforms really is the lady in the counter or that guy in production, which makes the job very hard for marketing to carry out all on their own. So summing up, social media is mainly about two things: getting a great idea and  all round internal commitment!

/Katrine

This is just funny. Sony Ericsson should definately do more like this and less with bouncing balls and stuff. It works as a viral in the this can’t be for real sense – which all of it definately can’t. And they manage to feature some of the salient product features like the web, video social media functions and the infinity button. Good job I like the Guido film the best. Gotta start chewing more gum.

/Baek

Really cool interactive video for the track “We used to wait” from Arcade Fire / ad for html5 / Google Stret view/earth.

This is where I grew up – Trapholtparken in Kolding. Well one of the places:-) Check out the video and make your own.

http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/#Trapholtparken,+6000+Kolding,+Denmark

/Baek

This is hillarious and actually rather smart. It a small digital utility from Old Navy. It reads your ass and recommends what type of jeans you should go for – down to the label of Old Navy of course. Very cool. My booty sign is Posteriourious, which means jeans with stretch for that ass. Thanks to Martin from Plant for the heads up. Try it out.

Old Navy Booty Reader

/Baek

Well here it is – Facebooks take on Geotagging yourselv. I can’t figure out how it works yet. Also don’t really see the difference from Foursquare. I’m sure it will all become clear in due time. If anyone has any experiences with this – please share.

/Baek

I know this is not comms related or anything. But it says a thing or two about the power of the Internet. The last part of this rant was released earlier today and already they put an animation to it. And of course it’s hilarious… and sad.

Have a great summer folks.

/Baek

This on the other hand is pretty cool. A nice integrated campaign and some very good mechanic Ideas – especially Livestrong Chalkbot, which would print peoples messages on the roads where Tour de France was run. The contributors would then receive the GPS location of their message. Nicely done by Wieden & Kennedy.

Check out the case here: Cannes Lions.

/Baek

Well Forsmann & Bodenfors…and MEC won it’s first Integrated Titanium Lion. Fantastic. It was won for the Ikea opening in Malmö, where you tagged pictures of furniture with your name. The first to tag won the piece of furniture and of course the rumor spread on Facebook feeds and updates. Not a bad idea, but again a Cannes Lions Titanium winner? I don’t think so. It looks like they liked Social Media for the winners this season.

/Baek

Best Buy did a neat Twitter expert help function… they called it twelpforce (@twelpforce). It just won the Integrated Titanium Grand Prix in Cannes. Maybe I don’t get the big picture, but it doesn’t seem that different from some of the other Twitter customer service help functions, like those from Starbucks, Dell and Southwest Air… and none of them won! Did I misunderstand something.

The campaign is made by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, meybe that’s why it won?

Check out the case here: Cannes Lions

/Baek

/Baek