SOCIAL MEDIA CASE STUDIES [GB_V44.0]

Molson Coors is encouraging fans to join their ‘Molson Canadian Red Leaf Project’ by volunteering at summer events, planting virtual trees (that will later translate into real trees), and sharing their green citizenry on Twitter and Facebook - Red Leaf Project 

Sony and Intel are teaming up to challenge fans in ‘Project Shiphunt’ -- an online game involving Google Earth where players use virtual sonar to search the oceans for sunken treasure - Facebook 

Volkswagen’s ‘Think Blue’ initiative aligns like-minded people – More 

Oakley's "You Vs _" Experience -Campaign pits you against sponsored riders in a clever, collaborative, competitive, interactive POV, socially integrated experience. Bravo Big Balls and rehabstudio, London - very impressive work – Website 

'The Science of Social Timing' - When is the optimal time to post your content? This Infographic on Social Timing' should help - More 

Southwest Airlines discusses how they are connecting with customers by sharing behind-the-scenes and breaking news stories - Social Media Examiner 

’Pay with a Tweet’ - A social payment system - 'The world's first social payment system' - Christian Behrendt and Leif Abraham Pay with a Tweet idea got 13,000+ downloads in the first 24 hours, and the 'Pay With A Tweet' button is now used by brands like Greenpeace and Microsoft – Website 

eBay is launching a social sharing function that allows users to find products and drag them to their Facebook page where friends can vote and offer comments on the selection - DMNews 

MINI MAPS - Google Maps Racing Advergame - Here's a cool Facebook app that lets you customise a virtual MINI and then challenge Facebook friends to time trials via a Google Maps mash-up (by DDB Paris & Unit9) – YouTube or English version also available.

For those not allowed to social network while at the office, Diesel has created a "Be Stupid at Work" application that disguises your Facebook account as an Excel spreadsheet - Adweek

Google has launched "Me on the Web" -- a social networking profile that allows users to manage all of their social network accounts from Google's social networking profiles - ReadWriteWeb

ASOS Fashion Marketplace – “The Global Fashion Democracy” by Profero is the UK’s largest fashion store.  Here’s their new website.

After reaching over 10 million users, Foursquare announced its most popular brands, including Old Navy, Bank of America, 7-Eleven, The Home Depot, and Target - Foursquare 

McDonald's is challenging New York's boroughs and surrounding metro communities to see which neighborhood can participate the most on Foursquare, Twitter, and Facebook during their "Toast Your Town" campaign - ClickZ

Hotels.com's latest campaign (www.tripyourface.com) is like "Elf yourself" on steroids. It's a clever, collaborative, and socially integrated experience that let's you and your friends travel to Vegas to star in a Vanilla Ice video and attend an after-party tickle-fight with Dennis Rodman!? Equally wonky 'trips' are available in NYC and Paris. Hmmmm – Website

GE is using Instagram and Tumblr to give fans a unique inside look at their research labs, manufacturing plants, and archives from the last 130 years - The GE Show

Using Facebook 'Places' to Recycle - Coca-Cola (Israel) added over 10,000 new “recycling bins” to the Facebook Places index, and challenged fans to check-in at any recycling bin and take a photo of themselves to help promote social recycling –YouTube 

USA TODAY shares how they made charity cooler than Justin Bieber with their #AmericaWants Twitter campaign - Vimeo

Snapshot: 60 Seconds on the Internet - Infographic 

If you (like many of our co-workers) are now hacking KINECT and creating all new gesture-based applications to delight and amaze - you're going to like these - http://bit.ly/msaakw and http://bit.ly/iY3T3R.

Intel presents "The Escape" – An immersive, interactive and extremely well executed experience with intelligent use of social (collaboration and integration), QR codes, mobile and more - YouTube 

Try and get a teenager to run anywhere and you’ll quickly realize that more then a Nike+ mobile app is required. Nike Running understands this and is trying to make running more fun, creative, and socially rewarding with their latest (by BoondoggleNL).  http://youtu.be/unJSk7pftZ0 and http://bit.ly/lkeVEO

NOTE: For more articles and posts from the last week please visit us on Twitter at both @goodbuzz and @disruptbureau.  Also, if you have info, articles, case studies or other examples of participatory marketing bliss - please feel free to either post via Facebook or send via e-mail and we’ll take care of it for you.

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Mobile Apps To Help You Plan The Perfect Summer Trip

Wanderfly can help planning your trip by recommending destinations based on your interests, price range and dates. They'll provide you with a dream vacation...that you can actually afford. Visit Wanderfly 

TripIt helps you get your trip research and itineraries under control and into one place for easy access. You can even book restaurants, theater tickets or activities from within the site. Visit TripIt 

Weatherspark lets you look up years of past weather data to see what weather is really like during certain times of year. It can help ensure that the highlight of your vacation isn't cable re-runs. Visit Weatherspark 

AirBnB connects people who have space to spare with those looking for a place to stay by letting you rent lodging directly from locals. It's a great way to save money and have a unique travel experience. Visit AirBnB 

The GasBuddy app searches prices at gas stations near your current location. The results are mapped so you can find the closest and cheapest refueling options. Download GasBuddy 

Using a smartphone abroad? Onavo can help you avoid a mammoth phone bill. It cuts down on the downloading required to use your favorite apps with cloud technology. Download Onavo 

WikiMe for iPhone indexes Wikipedia articles about local points of interest, and then uses GPS and geotagging to show you those articles when you're nearby. It's like a pocket tourguide. Download WikiMe 

Vayable lets you hire a local to give you a guided tour of his or her home city, on a subject your guide knows and loves. Tours cover everything from sailing excursions in CA to pizza tours of NYC. Visit Vayable 

Postagram lets you send postcards made from your own photos right from your cell phone. For just $.99 it's a super-easy way to share vacation pictures before you even get home. Download Postagram 

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Volkswagen’s ‘Think Blue’ initiative aligns like-minded people

Increasingly consumers are defining themselves by what and whom they associate with. To wit, what your brand represents is an integral part of peoples identity by association.  This brand ‘shorthand’ is a testament to ones beliefs and values. It’s a badge and by definition, is a characteristic mark, device (or token) especially of membership in a society or group.  It's also an imperative element to creating an aspirational identity that’s relevant to the consumer (and coincidentally the key in getting people to want to be associated with your brand.)

This is precisely why many savvy brands are focusing on social good today.   A great example is Volkswagen’s ‘Think Blue’ initiative. Volkswagen (Singapore) for example launched a multi-phased campaign centered on its ‘Think Blue’ philosophy of environmental conservation. ‘Think Blue’ is a global initiative from Volkswagen focused on encouraging eco-friendly behavior by making it fun.

The 360 degree campaign features a website promoting the first-ever social media driven virtual road trip integrated with Google Street View‘ – that let’s users invite friends along for the ride.  While educating the masses on the ‘Think Blue’ philosophy in a fun and interactive way, the website also brings people together on an online social road trip, a carefully planned journey that ushers the user through various checkpoints with games and interactions along the way.

Using several of Google’s Open API like Maps, direction and Street View together with Facebook and Twitter, users are invited to go on a virtual road trip with their Facebook friends. They are given options to choose a Volkswagen car, plan a route, and pick three Facebook friends to take along with them across the sunny island of Singapore. With this technological mashup, users can document their journey; mark checkpoints with a personalized message and the whole experience is compiled into a downloadable map, complete with a customized license plate and ‘photo’ of the user and his or her road trip buddies.

During their road trip, users will also get to sample a unique HTML5 multi-windowed gaming experience.  Conceived as fuel challenges, these games teach users how to ‘Think Blue’ while entertaining them with simple yet fun game mechanics. Users who ace all the fuel challenges even stand a chance to win a Volkswagen weekend drive.

 After all the action on the virtual road, users can take a backseat and learn more about the Volkswagen technologies that support the green philosophy. To inject more fun, Tribal DDB took to the idea of getting a child’s perspective and the immensely charming ‘Think Blue Tales’ were born - where users will hear a child’s take on Volkswagen cars and technologies. In the days ahead, users can also expect to hear “Think Blue. Tales” on national TV and radio.  To lets users play with the brand, users can sign up for Volkswagen’s Eco-driving Program through the website and learn fuel-efficient driving techniques from Volkswagen-certified driving instructors.

This is extremely powerful because Volkswagen isn’t just paying lip service to the very real concerns of pollution and global warming.  They have made a formal pledge to ‘Think Blue’ as a corporation and every Volkswagen employee has also made the pledge.  To further reinforce the point, the campaign even featured educational posters drawn by hand using recycled materials.  

Other internal initiatives include a ‘Think Blue’ committee made up of staff representatives from the various departments to explore and implement green ideas from employees, as well as e-mail signatures that remind recipients not to print their emails (and reinforce the value positioning of Volkswagen.

Kudos to Volkswagen (and Tribal DDB) - for making ‘less about the moment and more about the movement’.  They’ve successfully extended one powerful unifying, overarching idea (facilitated by the brand) that seeks to aggregate and align like-minded people by extending something other then (and bigger then) the brand itself. Very impressive indeed.

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