Brands Go Social

Kitty Bradshaw is a name that everyone in the NYC area and blogging
scene should know. She is a spunky and super smart blogger who host
some of the most fabulous events you've ever attended. Most recently
Kitty Bradshaw celebrated her two year Blogiversary at APART Fashion
Showroom (http://www.apartstyle.com/). APART is a fashionable show
room in the heart of NYC and any girl who is looking for the ultimate
style should go there and get hooked up ASAP. It was very smart on the
part of APRT Fashion Showroom to connect with Kitty Bradshow because
her target demographic for her blog is female fashionistas. APART even
gave the fashion bloggers dresses!!!! I was amazed at such a move but
again if you want your blogger demographic to take you seriously you
have to give a little to get.

But the brand connections didn't stop there. Kitty Bradshaw brought
out the big guns for this event. My favorite vodka Smirnoff jumped
onto the social media scene and came in as a liquor sponsor. Smirnoff
Vodka has a ton of new flavors, my new favorite is the Pineapple
Vodka and the Root Beer Vodka, and if you haven't tried them then you
are missing out.

Other brands involved::

Manicures sponsored by Priti Nails - http://www.pritinyc.com/
Cheese platters sponsored by Cabot Creamery - http://www.cabotcheese.com
Cocktails sponsored by Smirnoff Vodka - http://www.smirnoff.com/
Cupcakes by Tonnies Minnies - http://www.tonniesminis.com/
Skin care analysis by MySkin.com
Beverages by Skinny Water - http://www.skinnywater.com/
Shoes by Nina Shoes - http://ninashoes.com/
Gift Experiences in a Box - http://www.smartbox.com/
Non-Profit Lower Eastside Service Center/Angel Thrift Shop -
http://www.angelthriftshop.org/about.html

And the bloggers turned out in full-force, almost 200, and interacted
with the brands, tweeted, took pictures, live blogged, video taped,
and exposed each of these brands to a new level of social media media
height that no PR agency has been able to tap into.

Check out the video and see some of the reactions to Kitty Bradshaw's
event. And if your a brand looking to connect with bloggers then reach
out to us at streetforce1@gmail.com.

In the ongoing war for Lebron James, the NJ NETS and Gowalla have
scored a major ad placement for their service. If your on 34th and
8th...only a few blocks from my Job at Zezza, you will see a HUGE
billboard for the NJ NETS. The billboard features photos of new New
Jersey Nets owner (and Russian billionaire) Mikhail Prokhorov and Nets
minority owner (and hip-hop star) Jay-Z. Second. However more
importantly for the location-based tech cognoscenti is the mention at
the bottom of the billboard referring to a free gift item for those
that check-in with Gowalla at that location. I'm going to go
re-download Gowalla today and check-in and see what the free gift item
is. I stopped using Gowalla cause most of my friends are on
FourSquare.

So which do you think is better FourSquare or Gowalla? Send me a tweet
and let me know.

I went to Kitty Bradshaw's Blogaversary last week and today I got a
cool e-mail with a coupon for %25 off at the store. I'll give you more
details on this event soon and how 200 bloggers packed into the APART
showroom and gave the company a social media boost.
http://www.apartstyle.com/

I missed this one but this is really cool. The Thomson LES Hotel held
a VIP Pool Party on the rooftop of the Hotel during Internet Week.
The Mayor's of select Internet Week venues got exclusive passes to the
event. This is an awesome use and we want to see more brands doing
thing as a way to reward loyal customers and influencers.

Have you see a cool usage of social media? Send us a pic and let us know.

Nice move by Air New Zeland on the social media front. If you become
the mayor of the terminal you get free access to the lounge and other
rewards points. Sounds like an awesome incentive and one that I'm sure
many travelers would complete for.

Click here for more info: http://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/foursquare

Looks like FourSquare is getting a lot more popular and a lot more
accepted by brands. Check out this sticker posted in a Whole Foods
Window.

Canadian Club’s “Hide a Case” contest is one of the most unique
marketing campaigns the world has ever seen. And we just made
TechCrunch.com yesterday.

You can read the full story here
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/30/leveraging-social-media-for-contest-promotion/

Hiding cases across the globe, putting ads in magazines and having
people find the cases is something many companies would dare not do in
today’s time. Or in other words your legal team will look at you like
a crazy person and request that you seek help from a psychiatrist. But
the Internet buzz about its return and the $100,000 grand prize has
been an amazing experience. Participants are tasked with solving
weekly puzzles in order to move on to the next round of competition.
At the end 8 people will journey with the Thirsty Traveler Kevin
Brauch to try and find one of the lost cases of Canadian Club. But
it’s 2010 and you can’t launch any type of marketing campaign without
factoring in social media. While many thought social media would
quickly disappear or was a fad akin to the Pet Rock, an audience for
the medium quickly emerged. And this audience quickly grew to millions
and millions on Facebook and Twitter so much so that Facebook now has
more total members then there are residents in most major countries.
So how does Zezza Network, a boutique digital and social media
marketing agency located in NYC, take one of the world’s longest
marketing campaigns and make is fresh and hip for social media
junkies? The key to success is simple, find passionate fans and create
powerful connections, and have them spread the word via Facebook and
Twitter.

When Zezza Network started working on the “Hide a Case” campaign, the
agency took a long and hard look at the digital footprint of Canadian
Club online. And what they discovered is that the brand really needed
a strong kick of social media to get whisky enthusiasts talking about
the brand online. Zezza Network first developed three core objectives
for the brand that would have a long lasting effect on Canadian Club’s
digital footprint. Expanding the overall reach of the brand, driving
engagement, and creating and growing connections with the online
whisky community were the core of Zezza Network social media strategy.
Canadian Club is a historic brand but the social media generation
hasn’t been fully introduced to the rich history and great stories
around Canadian Club. So Zezza Network set out to share Canadian Club
with the social media community and the growing base on Facebook.
Through status updates, trivia, mixology and other social engagements
Zezza has helped to educate the community around the brand. This
strategy tired directly into the objective of creating connections as
existing and new members will help to further the continued success of
Canadian Club.

In order to attract and grow the audience for Canadian Club on
Facebook, Zezza Network decided that one of the best ways to capture
an audience is by giving them free gear. Everyone loves free gear and
the Canadian Club fan base was no exception. Zezza Network developed
the “Friend Get Friend” application which allows users to install the
Facebook application and then invite their friends to become fans of
Canadian Club on Facebook. Once the user has become a member of
Canadian Club they earn one point towards completing the offer. After
five friends have converted they then get a super cool Canadian Club
t-shirt in the mail. The shirt is bound to be the new hot thing for
summer 2010. But this simple activity was perfect for the Facebook
community who only love to things in a few clicks. It allowed current
lovers of Canadian Club to become mini brand ambassadors. The
application introduced Canadian Club to over 1000 new members in the
first week of its launch and to date has seen almost 5000 installs of
the application. What’s even better is that Canadian Club has been
able to build an e-mail list from that base in a short amount of time.
This list of enthusiasts will be invaluable for the future success of
brand and can easily lead into any CRM programs that Canadian Club
decided to launch in the future. That’s marketing speak for they will
e-mail you about cool offers in the future. This program got current
members excited and helped to grow the membership to over 28,000 in
almost 2 months of outreach.

In order to create additional connections for the brand Zezza Network
turned to Twitter. The Wine and Spirits industry has treaded lightly
on the usage of Twitter since there is no means for an LPA. But Zezza
Network worked extremely close with Beam Global for over a year to
finally get approvals for Beam brands such as Canadian Club to start
using Twitter. And the whisky community is pretty strong within
Twitter with people such as @Intoxocologic, @WhiskyWall, @Baratunde,
and @WhiskyCast who all tweet about whisky and other topics on a
regular basis. Zezza Network used various tool such as Klout.com,
TweetReach, and Sysomos: Heartbeat to develop an outreach matrix and
targeted influencers to help spread additional buzz for the “Hide a
Case” campaign. Canadian Club’s launch in the Twitter space has only
been for less than one week but already some of targeted influencers
have been tweeting and chatting with the brand on Twitter. It’s these
types of relations that will be long lasting and will help with the
continued success and growth of the brand via social media.

For any marketing campaign your online influencers will be your golden
ticket to success. Discovering who your ambassadors are and
communicating with them in an authentic voice will ensure that they
are able to effectively spread your campaigns message and help to
bring your campaign to the next level. Shifting digital metrics from
old school page views to new school connects is at the core of Zezza’s
social media philosophy. Because at the end of it all if none of your
consumers talked about your campaign then it really didn’t engage them
enough for them to even care.

Check out more of the cool social media work from Zezza Network at
http://ZezzaNetwork.com or read our social media press release at
http://zezzasocialpr.com.

(Disclosure: Mike Street is the Director of Social Media Marketing for
Zezza Network and has been with the company for over 2 years.)

I love it when a brand sends me a tweet. So today I re-tweeted a tweet
from @AroundHarlem and got a nice response from @DrPepper. Brands are
really stepping up their Twitter game and taking notice of their
followers. I'm currently managing @JimBeamOfficial and I think it is
SUPER important for brand to take notice of their followers and keep
conversations going. Conversations don't always have to be about the
brand. It's important to really let your community know that you are
watching and listening.