As a fan of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, it was great to see Broderick’s youthful smile again. I’ve always wanted to see a sequel made just to see what Bueller would do as an adult. I still think a Ferrari would be the choice over a Honda CR-V.

According to the 2012 Brand Bowl, the spot was ranked #12 with 9,862 mentions on Twitter using the #BrandBowl hashtag. Doritos took the #1 spot with 48,687 mentions.

For those Ferris Bueller fans for the 1980′s like myself, it was great to see some Easter Eggs within the Honda CR-V Super Bowl commercial. According to RPA, the agency that developed the spot, there are over two dozen references to the movie throughout the commercial. Here are some of them:

• In the talent agent’s office: On a shelf there’s an electric orb just like the one in Cameron’s room in the film, as well as a chair with a horse silhouette on the back, just like the one in Ferris’ room. On his desk are the same trophies that Principle Rooney had in his office as well as the same neatly lined up antacids and pens, while the three white-out bottles are a reference to the ones on Rooney’s secretary’s desk. Like a lot of these easter eggs, it’s easy to miss, but look carefully and you’ll also find a toy Ferrari in a glass case on the agent’s desk, a nod to the life-sized one they borrow from Cameron’s dad in the movie. That framed child’s drawing on the agent’s cabinet was the same picture on the fridge in Ferris’ house, and the baseball the agent is fondling is a nod to the foul ball Ferris catches at the Cub’s game. The agent’s name, by the way, Walter Linder, was in the reservation book at Chez Quis during the famous Abe Foreman scene. As for the name of the company where the agent works, Rozman, Peterson & Frye, that one even John Hughes might have missed: Ferris’ mom’s coworker was named Barbara Rozman, Sloan’s last name was Peterson, and Cameron’s last name was Frye.
• In Matthew Broderick’s hotel: The red phone is the same phone Ferris had in his room. The Rottweiler at the hotel entrance looks a lot like the Bueller dog.
• In the Honda: That rabbit foot keychain sticking out of the ignition is a reference to the scene in which Ferris and Cameron rub good luck charms in the back of a taxi while hiding from Ferris’ dad. The name on the dashboard screen when Broderick makes a mobile call is Grace, Rooney’s secretary’s name. Grace’s phone number — 312-555-2800 — contains both the area code for Chicago (where the movie takes place) as well as the street address for the Bueller house (the 555 is just filler). The car’s license plate — SOCHOIC — refers to “so choice,” Ferris-speak for cool.
• While driving, Broderick passes: A flower delivery man, just like the one Louie Anderson played in the film; a store window with a mannequin wearing Ferris’ vest and another wearing Cameron’s caduceus shirt; a sign for Chez Quiz; and a guy wearing a trench coat and playing the Clarinet (the outfit Ferris wore when he picked up Sloan at school);
• On the roller coaster: The guy sitting behind Broderick is wearing a Red Wings jersey exactly like the one Cameron wore.
• In the natural history museum: There’s a guy in the background wearing Ferris’ vest and beret and a woman wearing the Ronda t-shirt worn by one of the members of the dance troop in the film’s parade scene. The walrus scene is an (extremely) subtle reference to Ferris’ line about the Beatles. “I could be the walrus. I’d still have to bum rides off people.”
• At the races: There’s a man holding a tiki glass exactly like the one Ferris drinks out of in his backyard. There’s also a guy wearing flip-up shades just like Rooney’s.
• At the Chinese parade: There’s a girl on the sidewalk wearing Sloane’s white fringe jacket, a trio of construction workers dancing on the sidelines, and a man wearing the same “HONORED GUEST” sash that was in the movie.
• At Chez Neuf: The valet stand has the same logo as the parking garage in the movie. The name of the restaurant refers to the nine times Ferris missed school in the movie. It could also refer to the number of hours required to figure out all these easter eggs on your own.

The students created an interface that mimics how a person would flip through pages of a physical book along with a few other tricks. The result is simply amazing and creates a very elegant user experience.

The prototype allows you to easily scan multiple pages at a time, control how many pages are turned by gestures or speed, and the ability to thumb the edge of the pages to quickly flip through a book – much like you would do in the physical world.

To see it in action check out the video below. This really deserves to become a feature on the Apple iPad and other tablet devices.

Using the service myself I have found that Buffer allows you to add articles to your feed quickly, makes URL shortening a breeze, and even integrates with your favorite shortening service. Post-publish analytics are also available for each post that is shared through Buffer giving you the date and time, clicks, reach, retweets, mentions and favorites for each tweet you’ve sent.

Knowing when to best reach your followers can have a huge impact on how your social content is consumed. Buffer has found that it can increase the number of clicks by 200%, double your retweets and considerably increase your Klout score.

I’ve seen my dropping Klout score stabilize a bit over the past week while using the service and have definitely seen myself sharing better content.

And that is Buffer’s strength, their browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari help you immediately add items you see on the Web to your Buffer queue, while having full control over the message and even the ability to post the content immediately. Curating the best content leads to better engagement with your followers and increases your influence – hence increasing your Klout score.

The Buffer Android app will allow you to do the same on the go, and the service will also assign you a unique e-mail address to help send great content from other mobile devices (think iOS or tablet applications like FlipBoard) to your Buffer queue.

Buffer makes your life easier with a smarter way to schedule tweets. Work out all your tweets at one point in time during the day. Then fill up your Buffer with your tweets and Buffer schedules them for you. Simply keep that Buffer topped up and you will then be tweeting consistently all day round, all week long.

Buffer says that Google+ support is coming shortly. Do you use Buffer or another service to schedule your posts to Twitter or Facebook? Have you seen an increase in your engagement, influence or Klout score? Share your experiences and recommendations in the comments below.

Burberry, the iconic British luxury brand, has done an amazing job connecting it’s heritage to new digital channels. The Art of the Trench is an excellent example of the company using social media to create a living celebration of the Burberry trench coat and the people who wear it.

Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts is creating the ultimate social business by using enterprise level software from Salesforce.com to incorporate social and mobile capabilities across the organization and into their campaigns. Essentially connecting the business to the customer.

It is exciting to see Ahrendts talk about the efforts in the video below and to see that this is a top-down effort to invest in a social business.

As a fan of Kashi’s Original 7 Grain Crackers I was quite surprised that they changed the recipe in the fall of 2011. To find out more about the change I logged on to Kashi’s site to see if there was any information about the change. Unfortunately I did not find any.

After opening the box and trying the crackers I was very displeased. It seemed the recipe changed quite a bit and I thought I’d share my displeasure with Kashi. Unfortunately I never received a response from the company. Did Kashi even care that I was unhappy with their product?

As a fan of the previous recipe I found a handful of boxes at a nearby grocery store. I decided to purchase every last one that I could get my hands on to avoid the new recipe. Now that is customer loyalty.

Nearly four months later I have returned to Kashi’s website to see unanswered complaints and comments on the Kashi Original 7 Grain Cracker page. Some of the comments are quite harsh, here are just a few:

• We are soooo UNHAPPY with the new recipe of the “TLC Original 7 Grain Snack Crackers”. They are so BAD!! They taste like burnt cardboard.
• New recipe is terrible. Not edible. Our favorite cracker has been ruined. Please change back!!
• At first I thought that I got a bad box of crackers that had been burned at the factory and I was ready to call the product line … after sampling a few other boxes it became apparent there was a change in the recipe.
• I want to add my voice to the chorus denouncing the recent change in this once-delicious cracker to the new “Now With Tastier Crunch!” version. The texture and flavor are both awful in comparison and I will not be buying these anymore unless Kashi decides to change them back.

Those are some pretty negative comments. A brand can not afford to ignore comments on social media channels, let alone their own website. What is the point of allowing the consumer to comment if you aren’t going to listen to them or respond?

The lesson here is not to ignore your customer. If you plan on establishing a presence in social media channels, add comments to your website, or reviews and ratings you should be prepared with a strategy for online customer service and reputation management.

If a brand continues to ignore consumer complaints they will grow, expand to other sites and channel and soon enough all you will find are negative conversations about your brand or product on search engines. That creates a long-term problem that is not easily, if ever, reversible.

As a person that was looking to find a tasty and healthy alternative to some other crackers, I was very happy when I was introduced to Kashi. Unfortunately I don’t see myself going back to their product(s) anytime soon. I’m curious if Kashi, and other companies that ignore their social media channels, would ignore a phone call to their customer service department?

Judging from the lack of response on Facebook and their website Kashi may only answer their customer service phone lines 5% of the time. Learn from their mistake. A brand should be prepared to scale their web and social media efforts to answer every customer inquiry and complaint.

Social media channels like Facebook and Twitter give a company the chance to take product feedback and influence their business. Do you plan on having a social business, one that listens to its customers? In this case Kashi could have used social media monitoring to measure product satisfaction and perhaps react quickly to the outcry from their customers.

Is your brand ready to monitor social media channels? Do you respond to all customer complaints? Share your thoughts below.

The commercial starts out with a thief very slowly walking out of the television department in a electronics store. He proceeds to walk backwards out of the store to avoid the security camera catching him with “The World’s Slimmest Television” under his right arm.

As the clever thief exits the store he runs away with the slim 42″ LG television. Shortly after the thief runs out of frame you can see a store employee chasing after him. All along, there is some very subtle branding in the store window about LG having the “World’s Slimmest Television.”

This is great advertising and will get plenty of views online. The formula is very simple. Let people copy and share the video of a thief stealing a TV. But the twist is that you don’t see him carrying a TV until the last moment. This creates great talk value, and as people watch the video two or three times to find the TV under his arm they may also see the subtle branding from LG.

Bravo!

Pexton wonders “whether there’s just a bit too much innovation, too fast.” He also goes on to say that “there’s a time to press on the accelerator, and a time to ease off. Substance, clarity and direction will be more important in the long run than buzz.”

Looking across the newspaper industry it doesn’t appear that any serious media company is pushing innovation strictly to create more buzz. Pexton takes a very stodgy position by saying “hardly a week goes by without the Web site or newspaper launching some feature, or a venture to attract more revenue, or a blog, or a social media innovation.”

I applaud The Post for embracing a start-up mentality. Just last week I posted on this blog about the need for newspapers to take risks and become early adopters. One could argue that a company should slow down to evaluate their success and failures, but is the competition taking such a break?

In 2011 The Washington Post Co. launched a news aggregation website called Trove that allows readers to customize the news around their interests. Similar innovations and risks have given newspapers the opportunity to better serve their readers.

While Pexton supports innovation, it appears he would rather see the Washington Post take things slower. It’s a surprising position.

As ombudsman, Pexton serves as a reader representative and The Post’s internal critic. It appears to me that Pexon treats the role seriously, but he should consider the role to also include education of the readers and community. While these innovations may make a few readers question the changes with the newspaper, Pexon should use his position to explain the strategy behind the improvements and additions to The Post.

Maybe it’s time for Pexton to realize that the innovations and speed in which they are happening are not about making him happy. It’s about reinventing the way we consume news and to attract new readers. It appears there are still many newspaper veterans that don’t understand media fragmentation, consumption habits, or that embracing innovation is the only way to save the newspaper industry.

As the Washington Post ombudsman, Patrick Pexton represents readers who have concerns or complaints on topics including accuracy, fairness, ethics and the news gathering process. He also serves as The Post’s internal critic and strives to promote public understanding of the newspaper, its Web site and journalism more generally. (Source: Washington Post)

Boston based BzzAgent, a subsidiary of UK based dunnhumby, Ltd., studied brand advocates participating in programs for several consumer products over the course of a year. After a full year, 94% of the lift in product opinion, 91% of the lift in likelihood to recommend and 88% of the lift in purchase intent was maintained.

There was a clear boost in the likelihood of brand advocates recommending a product. Pre-campaign recommendations of 39% jumped to 61% immediately after a campaign. The effect of the social media campaign did diminish with time, but 55% of brand advocates studied were still significantly more likely to recommend a product a year later.

Summer 2010 - Summer 2011

Purchase intent also saw a boost. Pre-campaign, 38% of respondents said they would purchase a brand. Post-campaigns numbers jumped more than 30 points and remained at nearly 70% for three months. A full year later, purchase intent was still as high as 61%.

Summer 2010 - Summer 2011

The three takeaways for marketers according to BzzAgent?

• Advocacy marketing is highly effective
• Marketing benefits are long-lasting
• Programs can be scaled efficiently to increase business impact

More information can be found in the infographic compiled by BzzAgent. Not many studies have shown the power of social media campaigns and how they affect a brand. Have you seen other studies or case studies that support these numbers? Share your comments and case studies below.

Sources: BzzAgent, eMarketer

So why ask if your brand is drama free? I recently read a post covering the topic that said, “if a story doesn’t have drama, it’s not a story at all; it’s just a fragment, an incomplete part.”

I certainly don’t agree with that. It may not be an exciting or memorable story, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a story. A story may simply be a narrative, a lesson, or the telling of a sequence of events. None of those story types require drama to illustrate a point or a brand promise.

The post goes on to explain that “good drama begs for moments” and that “every good campaign should have a moment when all the storytelling efforts—earned media, social buzz, events, ad placements—come to a head.”

If the drama in your campaign consists of one big moment, or climax, are you missing out on other opportunities to drive a consumer to take action? Consumer habits have changed. And that requires marketers not to think in terms of campaigns and channels but to consider weaving many moments into the media stream. (More on that in a future post)

Essentially we are weaving a story across multiple channels and devices that may not be seen by all consumers. So if your marketing is focused on a single moment, your consumers may only be getting part of the story.

Big ideas are coming to an end. In fact, when developing a digital marketing strategy I may want to focus on many (great) smaller ideas that collaborate to achieve similar results. It is more agile, more efficient, and quicker to market.

Normally I refrain from commenting on opinions or work from competitors, but I thought it was an thought provoking topic. While I disagree with their marketing philosophy, I appreciate it opening a dialogue.

Wait, MySpace had more unique vistors per month in 2011 than Google+ did? Although Google+ was released in beta in July, the service opened to the public in September.

According to Nielsen the top 10 U.S. social networks and blogs in 2011, by unique vistors per month were:

1. Facebook – 137.6 million average unique visitors per month
2. Blogger – 45.5 million average unique visitors per month
3. Twitter.com – 23.6 million average unique visitors per month
4. WordPress.com – 20.4 million average unique visitors per month
5. Myspace.com – 17.9 million average unique visitors per month
6. LinkedIn – 17 million average unique visitors per month
7. Tumblr – 10.9 million average unique visitors per month
8. Google+ – 8.2 million average unique visitors per month
9. Yahoo! Pulse – 8 million average unique visitors per month
10. Six Apart/TypePad – 7 million average unique visitors per month

The data is from January – October 2011, ranked on average monthly unique audience.

According to Compete.com, MySpace saw just over 21.4 million unique visitors in November 2011 whereas Google+ saw just about 14.3 million unique visitors in the same month. While both services appear to be trending in different directions, it is important to note that Google’s social network has a lot of work to do before it becomes relevant to consumers and brands.

How do you intend to use Google+ in 2012? Will the service be part of your social media strategy? Share your thoughts below.