Buick, a brand favored by retirees, is delving into more youthful waters with a full-out social media campaign to coincide the debut of the new 2011 Buick Regal. Its tactic is to create a website of all social media channels called MomentofTruth.com that shows what everyone and anyone is saying online about the new model, certainly a radical step from granny-targeted TV ads.

So far for Buick things are looking on the upside. The Moment of Truth website has a stream of conversation from news sites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The Regal discussion seems generally positive, and a quick look at the site gives the brand a favorable boost from the public. What’s even more significant is the general youthful vibe the social media chatter appears to give the brand. Just check out some of the comments on the Moment of Truth stream where actual people try to bust the myth that this is granny’s car:

To wit, the merits of the new approach is being bandied about already on RegalForums.com, a community for Regal owners.  And the general idea remains the same: This approach is a positive one, and Buick can perhaps finally shake off its stodgy reputation. Nonetheless, most forum discussion was pure shock that Buick was actually doing a social media campaign.

The fact that Buick has now embraced a mid-summer social media blitz shouldn’t come as a surprise. Just in the last two days we reported that Ford was ditching the traditional auto show for a Facebook launch in the unveiling of the 2011 Explorer, and we also noted the social philosophy key to the growing electronic vehicle market. The move by these three major car brands to involve social media at the core of the marketing message points to a larger issue: auto shopping is a social activity, regardless of your age.

That’s the conclusion of the latest comScore study which finds that women spend far more time than men online connecting with their social network of friends and acquaintances. Perhaps that’s not surprising until you consider that women, on average, spend roughly 90 minutes more per month on social networks than men. That amounts to 5.5 hours/month for women on the likes of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube compared to about 4 hours for men.Among the other findings, comScore says:

Although women account for 47.9 percent of total unique visitors to the social networking category, they consume 57 percent of pages and account for nearly 57 percent of total minutes spent on these sites.

Here’s a handy table provided by comScore, breaking down the tale of the tape between the sexes:

And now by region, where women in Latin America are leading the field:

One thing we should point out: the fact this study does not include mobile access to social network very likely skews the gender gap. We’re keen to see what that gap might look like taking into account all forms of access. We’ll be sure to report it here if we come across such a study.

With the electric car market finally firing volting up manufacturers are turning to social media to inform and inspire a still skeptical public. General Motors this week is using its considerable social media prowess to build buzz behind the Chevy Volt electronic vehicle (EV). The momentum is already starting to build on the walls of Facebook.

GM, which is trying to wiggle out of government control with a possible IPO next month, isn’t planning an elaborate traditional marketing campaign for the small-production Volt; just 10,000 will be built for model year 2011. Instead, it wants to create a long term discussion with a strong community feel for eco-minded drivers so that the market can build on itself from the ground-up as more people invite their friends to take part in the discussions. Code for: GM will no doubt invest a greater portion of the marketing budget for Volt into social media. For example, Mary Henige, Direct of Social and Digital Communications at GM, detailed how the Volt started its online buzz-building efforts months ago as a sponsor of the very geeky SXSW conference, a partnership, she said in an interview with AutomotiveWorld.com recently, that was all about community:

My team took the idea of sponsorship to Chevy. We suggested that this was a fabulous thing for the brand, and that it fits perfectly, especially with the Chevrolet Volt. The Chevrolet marketers agreed. Having the community involved in your social site is really the way forward.

True to form, the Chevy Volt Facebook page, now 33,600 fans strong, is filled with discussions weighing the economic costs/benefits. The enthusiasts are quick to answer the questions of curious newcomers. Some of the questions are pretty oddball (see below). The Volt’s Twitter and YouTube channels, meanwhile, are pumping out informative videos and articles to 4,316 and 715 followers, respectively.

This isn’t just a GM thing, either. This electric wave of social media chatter is being orchestrated by other EV brands as well. The Nissan Leaf EV, for example, which is being marketed as the most economical, no-emissions vehicle on the market, has a growing Twitter following of 5,050 followers. The Nissan Leaf Facebook page already has 72,100 fans participating in active and informative discussions, and it is complimented by 37 Q&A videos built right into the page. The Tesla Roadster EV, which is being marketed at a more sporty consumer from a higher income bracket, has a produced a Facebook page of 18,500 fans displaying a series of discussions of why an electric sports car is just as hot as a top-of-the-line Italian gas guzzler.

Either way, the pages are building a community and a market through educational and informative content that the eco-concerned public seeks. The message may have fewer marketing bells and whistles, but the up-sell is no less ambitious: to improve the planet.

Reuters’ Leslie Gevirtz kicked up a bit of a fuss earlier this week when she reported how French winemakers are still a bit too snobby when it comes to social media marketing, particularly when compared to more net-savvy New World producers. She based some of her reportage on a recent study conducted by My Social Winery that detailed just how anti-social French winemakers are. The results may surprise you.For example, while 95% of French winemakers export their wines, the vast majority do not have a blog, Facebook or Twitter presence, and 37% have yet to translate their site into English. I’d be willing to bet Italian wineries aren’t much better. Grumble, grumble.

If you want to see the cutting edge of digital/social media marketing of wines, you have to travel to Napa Valley. Rick Bakas, director of social media marketing at Napa’s St. Supery winery, recently shared (video below) with a congregation of French winemakers a series of successful tips on using social media to boost sales, and, more importantly, build customer loyalty and grow profit margins. According to Bakas, margins this year are up 130% and they’ve managed to reduce churn for the St. Supery wine club from 7% a year ago to a 1% attrition rate today. How important is that? Bakas says an incredible 90% of margins come from the wine club. Gulp!

The video (again thanks to My Social Winery) reveals a host of important tips on using social media to build a loyal and engaged audience, regardless of the industry.

Video conference with Rick Bakas about wine and social media from Pierrick Bouquet on Vimeo.

Is the car show headed for the scrap heap? The auto industry is buzzing today after Ford debuted the new 2011 Ford Explorer model to the public in a brand new way: ditching the closed-door feel of the auto show and instead bringing the new model straight to its Facebook fans.

The social media-focused launch was complimented by a real-life event in downtown Manhattan (and similar appearances in eight other cities), which aimed at capturing the adventurous philosophy of the brand by building an artificial forest on a major city street to feature the new SUV and provide video material for the Facebook unveiling. Could this be the new formula for future auto launches, going direct to the consumer, bypassing the automotive press?

To be fair, Ford filled its Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels with the typical launch-day fare: videos of company execs extolling the virtues of the new model and celebrity spokesman Mike Rowe interviewing a smiling Ford CEO Alan Mulally. The real action started well before: the new Ford Explorer Facebook page has been holding a sweepstakes to win a new Explorer and is cultivating wall discussion around the SUV’s new features. Ford’s goal was to reach 30,000 fans before even revealing the Explorer, which it duly met. And, in the last 24 hours alone, 10,000 new fans have signed up for a total of 54,000.

For Ford, the key to the new “formula” has been in holding a high-profile, yet highly accessible, event where a trove of “earned media” can be generated (i.e. videos, photos, etc.) and re-used. The company has plenty of material now to directly upload to its Facebook, YouTube and Twitter channels to share with its followers and encourage them to discuss. As The Detroit Free Press noted, the old model involved spending $50 million to $100 million on a four-week TV advertising campaign to generate buzz. Rebecca Lindland, automotive analyst for IHS Automotive, told the newspaper, “we are going to see this more and more because of the impact of social media.”

How has the public responded to this new form of auto show? From wall conversation chatter, it seems the personal feel of the event has really hit home with both consumers and investors alike:

Creativity can be a powerful force, particularly in the world of cause-related marketing. But can so-called “good creative” motivate us to change our rigid ways? What if it’s to make the world a better place? Andy Hobsbawm, founder of Do The Green Thing, thinks so. I had the chance to speak to Andy on the sidelines of our Social Media Influence conference (yes, we’ve been promising the publication of this video for some time now; we posted his presentation here a few weeks ago) to ask him about the role of social media in helping companies involve the public in their corporate social responsibility (or, CSR) efforts. Here’s what he had to say:

With a surge of nearly 200,000 new Facebook fans in the past month, the Old Spice viral video campaign featuring “The man your man could smell like” could very well be considered one of the most successful fully integrated campaigns yet. New fans are a great thing for the marketing department to tout, but, of course, the execs upstairs want to know: do new fans actually correspond to an improved top-line? The Old Spice team is already being bombarded with the question.

The major surge in Facebook fans has slowed since the campaign hung up the towel (for now) two weeks ago. The Famecount graph bellow illustrates the peak in the fan sign-up rate, which is now hovering just below a total of 700,000 fans.

That’s the not-so-hot news. More impressively, AdAge reported today that Old Spice did indeed see a rise in sales during the past month, but so did the entire market of body wash producers (see table bellow).

Ad Age also notes that Old Spice, along with Gillette, started a major coupon drop in the same period. When asked what was the driver of higher sales, P&G spokesman Mike Norton said, “It’s impossible to know.” That probably won’t satisfy most social media watchers anxious to find further examples of social media loyalty translating to a sales boost.

No, we’re not talking about this page. Ford Motor Co. has been running the ultimate give-away promotion in the run-up to the relaunch of the 2011 Ford Explorer. If enough people click “Like” on the official Ford Explorer Facebook page then one of those fans earns the chance to win the brand new SUV. We’ve seen other “Like” give-aways before, including for fancy lingerie that succeeds in amassing a quick surge of bargain-hunting fans. But what could the chance to drive home a brand new $30,000 car bring in in terms of new Facebook fans?

Well, Ford was hoping for at least 30,000 new Ford Explorer fans when it announced the details of the Facebook giveaway earlier this month. They beat that number, but not by that much considering what’s at stake: a brand new SUV. The fans number stands at a little over 43,000 this morning, not quite enough to crack Famecount’s list of top 200 brands. Maybe they should do a give-away each month.

Still, Ford has managed to extend the buzz and excitement of the launch to a passionate community. And they’ve responded, discussing the merits of the new design as this exchange shows:

Of course, this is more valuable for Ford than goosing its fans number with fickle contest hopefuls.

In the growing list of social media marketing #fails, Coca-Cola’s recently pulled Dr Pepper Facebook campaign marks a new twist on an old marketing axiom: never underestimate your most influential market — moms. Mommy bloggers trump all in influence. That much we know. The Dr Pepper campaign also proves they even understand raunchy porn references that get giggles from the guys in creative, but go over the heads of the starched shirts in marketing. Can you say, Busted!?

It’s been a week now since the press caught on to the fuss being kicked up on Mumsnet over what’s been dubbed Coca-Cola’s “Facebook porn campaign.” What happened? Let’s start from the beginning.

In trying to add a bit of edgyness to the Dr Pepper brand, Coca-Cola, which owns the trademark and distribution rights in the UK and much of Europe, recently hired London-based agency Lean Mean Fighting Machine to create a social media marketing campaign whereby fans willingly gave up the controls to their Facebook status to the good doctor (a.k.a. the agency, LMFM), all for the chance to win a grand. Self-deprecating status updates then appeared on participants’ Facebook pages included lines like:

“Lost my special blankie. How will I go sleepies?”

… and this doozie…

“I watched 2 girls one cup and felt hungry afterwards.”

A parent, wise to the “Two Girls, One Cup” reference, objected to seeing it as her child’s Facebook reference. Why? As most any Howard Stern fan could tell you, “Two Girls, One Cup” is the name given to a video trailer that hit the web a few years back for a scat-fetish porn flick called “Hungry Bitches.” We’ll spare you a description of this wretchedly foul video, but it’s safe to say no brand would want to be associated with the gag. As the mom herself writes:

My 14 yo dd participated and I was HORRIFIED to log into FB and see that her status read – ‘I watched 2 girls one cup and felt hungry afterwards’. For anyone who doesn’t know what this means, please stay ignorant, for those who do, you can imagine how I felt. This was compounded later on when a quick search through dds internet history revealed she had tried to find out what it was for herself. Thankfully, our ISP has a wonderful child filter!!

I too would caution ignorance-is-best when it comes to this video, but I do need to point out that Two Girls, One Cup does hold a significant place in net lore: it may just be the first truly viral video sensation. About three years ago, YouTubers started posting scores of home-made videos depicting a viewer’s close-up facial reactions as he/she watched the action unfold off screen. There are now thousands of such reaction videos and they’ve been viewed tens of millions of times. There are even celebrity reactions (actual and fictional mash-ups) featuring the likes of Ron Jeremy (“unbelievably disgusting,” he says), Jack Bauer (tears) and Chuck Norris (speechless). Here’s an example (we promise; it’s SFW):

You can cut the Coca-Cola marketing team some slack for not being hip to scat porn references. (A red-faced Coca-Cola PR later copped to its ignorance.) But they did commit the cardinal sin here in not bothering to vet the comments first, instead relying wholly on the cleverness of a presumably younger, hipper, more digitally-savvy outside firm known for its edge. As eConsultancy points out, LMFM big attention-grabber prior to this Facebook campaign was to punk Chat Roulette users on April Fool’s Day, leading the publication to wonder, “it wasn’t clear what the brand got out of it, other than first mover status.”

Now Coca-Cola says it’s reviewing its ties with Lean Mean Fighting Machine. At the launch of the campaign, the agency tweeted what now reads like prophetic words for itself and its client:

Stitched up, indeed. Coca-Cola looks at best clueless and at worst negligent after this incident. You have to wonder: nobody at Coke could speak up and ask, What does this “two girls one cup” reference mean? A simple Google search would have clued them in. Instead, they get angry mommy bloggers to explain it.

As of today, there are 1,320 heated responses to the Facebook Dr Pepper discussion thread on Mumsnet.com. Not surprisingly, they take Coca-Cola, not the clever twenty-somethings at Lean Mean Fighting Machine, to task. Coca-Cola has responded by apologizing for the offensive material and the social media account with LMFM is officially under review, a not so subtle finger-pointing at who Coke believes to be the real culprit here.

And that’s probably not entirely fair for the agency. Yes, it took recklessly irresponsible liberties with the brand, an absolute no-no in the agency world. But it did deliver for its client something big: a lot of buzz for a pretty flat cola brand.

Clarification: in a previous version, we included a graph showing the Facebook user gain for Dr Pepper’s Facebook page in the U.S., not Dr Pepper UK. We regret the error.

Reporting by Brian Skepys; Writing by Bernhard Warner.

Many of you have commented on the one-on-one interview we did recently with Alexandra Wheeler, director of digital strategy at Starbucks. We thought we would also point you to her full SMI keynote presentation where she details how Starbucks built arguably the most successful social media brand marketing strategy. A hint: “it’s about relationships, not marketing,” she says.