Virgin America consistently impresses me with their unique marketing tactics and the latest campaign by the hip airline just affirms my love for them.

According to Techcrunch:

On Tuesday Virgin America and Loopt partnered to offer people two-for-one tickets to Cancun or Los Cabos from California. All you had to do was check in on Loopt at SFO, LAX or one of a variety of taco trucks in San Francisco and Los Angeles in a four hour window.

Loopt, which has four million users, is a small competitor to Foursquare, however the Taco stunt proved to be extremely successful.  Over 80% of people who checked in at the Taco trucks booked a flight on Virgin America, making it the airline’s fifth highest revenue day ever.

This is an awesome example of how social media can have a major impact on sales ( a highly debated topic).

Now if only Virgin would do a promotion like this with the Van Leeuwen ice cream truck conveniently parked on 23rd st. during lunch everyday.

-Maria

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Virgin America Rides Loopt Taco Truck Special To Fifth Largest Revenue Day Ever

“Justin Bieber To Perform at 2010 VMAs”

Obviously…

“Kanye West To Perform At 2010 MTV VMAs”

Wait…didn’t he get kicked out last year?

But what about the host, don’t we usually have a host by now?

As promo videos started rolling out, I wondered what wacky, outspoken, memorable (or not) host would be the ring leader of the musical circus known at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Just when I started to assume they would have Russell Brand host for the third year in a row, the tweet arrived: “@MTV: BREAKING: Introducing your 2010 MTV #VMA host…the hilarious @ChelseaHandler!!!” And the Twitterverse goes wild! “Chelsea Handler” shot to the top of the trending charts in a matter of minutes. Well played MTV, well played.

Chelsea Handler makes sense for so many reasons. Her late-night cable show keeps you adults up way past their bed times and her top-selling books, Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang and Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, can be found in beach bags and on e-readers from coast to coast.

But besides being snarky and hilarious, Chelsea’s a great fit to host because her social media presence is sure to help amplify to conversation around the show – a PR team’s dream.

Handler has more than 900,000 fans on Facebook and more than 2 million followers on Twitter (@chelseahandler). Then you have her personal website, MySpace profile, E! Online page, on top of dozens of fan pages that can be found with one simple Google search. Her social media fans will be louder than  the VMA host from the past two years, Russell Brand a.k.a @rustyrockets, who comes in with 1,327,038 followers and a mere 24,630 fans on Facebook.

The VMA host pick got me thinking beyond glitzy award shows to the events additional Text 100 clients’ host. Ranging from panel discussions to product launches, typically our clients will select well-known talent or third-party voices to add a different perspective or create a unique draw. However, when selecting talent, a candidate’s social media presence is often overlooked when determining the right fit.  Most often my clients look for talent that will grab traditional media attention or fill seats. Rarely are there social media activities examined to see how conversations could be sparked online. This is surprising since many speakers charge for their time and you’ll see a stronger ROI by taking the time to choose someone with a concrete social media presence.

Value and Evaluate

What should you look for next time you are looking to book talent for an upcoming event?

• Check out their Twitter following and fans on Facebook:  Take a look at the numbers to understand their reach but also look at who’s following them? Does it map to your target audience?
• What do they tweet about or post? : Do they tweet only about the minutia of their day or night club stops? Or do they talk about the events they participate in and the topics they’re passionate about or interested in? You’ll want to be comfortable with what they’re talking about because anything they say – positive or negative – during their releationship with you can affect your brand.
• Who’s in their inner circle? : Who do they commonly engage with? Are there influencers that can be reached through their social media circle? Are there people you wouldn’t want associated with your brand that could be too close for comfort online?

An award-worthy example of using social media to the max was at this year’s Emmy awards. Tech-savvy host, Jimmy Fallon, gave viewers at home a chance to be a part of the live event using their Twitter accounts. Fallon asked Twitter users to submit tweets about celebrity presenters for the chance to have them read as part of his introduction for those presenters. The day after the event he was responding to Twitter feedback about his performance and sharing links to the online video of his opening monologue.

The Double Edged Sword

But be warned. A social media presence can be a double edged sword — making it even more important that you aren’t turning a blind eye to it.

Anyone remember this year’s TED conference?

To attract the attention of the younger generation, TED conference organizers decided to book Sarah Silverman to perform. Unfortunately, her raucous presentation shocked the audience and organizers (who must not have been familiar with Silverman’s style and catalogue of work).

In an attempt to do some damage control, TED Organizer Chris Anderson took to Twitter: “I know I shouldn’t say this about one of my own speakers but I thought Sarah Silverman was god-awful.” Anderson tried to recall the tweet, but it was too late. Silverman, who is an active Twitter user with a massive following and sometimes aggressive tweets (something the organizers might have overlooked), responded by calling him a “barnacle of mediocrity….” Soon a Twitter flame war started with CEO if AOL trashing Silverman on Twitter as well. She responded: “You should be nicer to the last person on earth with an AOL account.”

Before you knew it, TED’s novel idea turned into THE news story from the conference. Anderson’s damage control tweet did just the opposite – it ignited the story and brought more attention to Silverman’s performance. In fact, a quick look at Google blogs shows that 85 % of the 33,000 posts about Sarah Silverman and TED mention the Twitter war. One has to wonder if this would have gotten the media attention at all if Anderson didn’t push send on that one tweet.

So next time you’re about to book a big-time speaker for an event, remember that it’s perfectly acceptable to do a little stalking of the candidates on Facebook and Twitter before the papers are signed.

I’ll leave you with a one final client plug:  if you’re a fan Chelsea (or perhaps Justin Bieber?!), make sure to tune-in September 12^th at 9pm/8pm CT for the always entertaining MTV VMA event. Rumor has it there may be a Kanye West/Taylor Swift reunion not to be missed.

Read original here::
What Your Brand Can Learn from MTV’s VMA Host Pick

Now Smell This: Replay, an Israeli perfume company, has a molecule in its perfume called cyclodextrin.  Now, I don’t want to talk down to you because you probably already know cyclodextrin is – but essentially it releases the scent of the perfume when it comes in contact with water.  To play up this technology Replay tied thousands of water guns to trees, bikes and benches in order to encourage the best-smelling water fight ever.

Paperless Class: The University of Notre Dame is testing an iPad-based class model. The Fightin’ Irish who are taking Project Management 118 Section 7* are encouraged to use the pad for class – as well as everyday life.

 *completely inaccurate

FashionStake: Founded by two Harvard grads last fall, FashionStake allows consumers to help fund and shape a designer’s collection before it’s been manufactured. Members can provide feedback to a designer, pre-order from the to-be collection, and/or throw some dollars the way of the designers so they can produce their pieces. (via @ARBetts)

Click here to let us know that you’d like to be added to the mailing list for the monthly edition of “word.”

—Lauren M.

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word. daily. (it should be noted that today’s date is 9-02-10 – see you at the peach pit)

Katie Hallen — When news broke Sidney Harman reportedly agreed to purchase Newsweek for $1.00 from The Washington Post Company in exchange for assuming its debts, it gave me pause – what else can you purchase for a buck these days?

Now that we’ve recently launched our M Booth Facebook page (please “like” us, by the way!), we’ve been trying to add all sorts of fun features to it, to keep M Boothers and friends posted on what we’re up to. So far, this includes everything from information on open positions, to photos from our parties and softball games, to posts from our two blogs (this one and Better4You).

Unfortunately, it was tough to find an easy way to import both of our blogs’ RSS feeds to the page. Facebook recommends doing it through its Notes application, but you can only import one blog and it wasn’t updating regularly for us. There are other applications that allow you to add a “Blog” tab to your page but again, it only allows one blog feed to be imported. We really didn’t want to have to manually put up a link every time someone blogged, but we were having trouble finding another option.

Luckily, Rob happens to follow a 13-year-old technology wunderkind named Jack DeFuria, who mentioned a free tool called dlvr.it on Twitter the other day. Rob asked me to check it out and I promptly fell in love (with dlvr.it, not Rob…or Jack). Not only will dlvr.it import multiple blog feeds to your Facebook page (and Twitter, LinkedIn or Google Buzz too, if you so desire), it also provides analytics on how many people are clicking through on each post. Now each of our M Boother-penned blog posts seamlessly shows up on our Facebook page within minutes. Problem solved!

—Alyssa

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Now that we’ve recently launched our M Booth Facebook page…

Do-Re-Mi: Each label on a Tuned Pale Ale bottle depicts a musical scale – the more you drink, the higher note the bottle will produce when blown in to. AND the packaging turns into a drumming box – we’re predicting this will be a competitor to Rock Band.

Between the Covers: Word Bookstore in Greenpoint has introduced a dating service for book lovas – the store put up a billboard and visitors are encouraged to list their must-reads and contact information. (cc: @elisehelene)

Unhear it: Need to get J.Lo’s “My Love Don’t Cost a Thing” out of your head? I sure do. Using the latest advancements in “reverse-auditory-melodic-unstickification” technology, Unhear It claims to make you forget the catchy tune you have stuck it your head by – replacing it with a new one.

 TEAL: Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson traveled through 33 states – not to eat at the best places or visit the grand ole sites – but to see how many typos they could find. So the two friends started the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL) and took a two and a half month journey around the country to call attention to typos in signs and attempt to fix them.

Click here to let us know that you’d like to be added to the mailing list for the monthly edition of “word.”

—Lauren M.

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word. daily. (september 1, 2010)

Research in Motion (RIM), makers of the BlackBerry, the smartphone category leader for most of the recent past seems in danger of going the way of Palm, who created the category, did.  In recent weeks there has been a steady flow of negative news and commentary form the media, ranging form today’s piece on Bloomberg that said “more companies opting for rival devices such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone.  Of 200 companies in the U.S. and U.K. surveyed, 74 percent now let their employees use devices other than BlackBerrys,” to news that various governments have raised questions about its security.  On the surface it appears RIM is suffering from bad PR and government relations.  My question is: Is this a marketing problem or a product problem?

It does appear that RIM has a significant PR challenge. Blackberry 6 has rolled out via a TV ad campaign but with little attention in the editorial side of the media.  What attention it has got has tended to focus on this being “RIM’s last roll of the dice.”  Of course RIM has also been berated for having a relatively weak product line up and for also having opted for a software application model that gave customers a few really good apps versus the thousands and thousands open to iPhone and Android users.  It would thus appear to be a perfect storm.  A weak product line up, a software strategy error and less than effective PR.  In other words it’s not just a marketing problem.

Can marketing save RIM? I for one believe the BlackBerry brand could still do well.  The iPhone, though beautiful, isn’t without its flaws: dropped calls, touch screen keyboard that can lead to horrendous typos, AT&T coverage in markets like San Francisco, the list goes on.  The iPhone is also becoming a target for people who like to exploit security holes.   I was recently told of a major investment bank that wanted to trial the iPhone for staff.  To make it secure they had to disable the camera, iPod functionality and the ability to download apps.  In other words it became a phone and email device.  Given these are actually two of its weaker functions (see list of weaknesses above) that should make the BlackBerry a very good alternative.  This is where marketing needs to step in and hammer the iPhone for all it’s worth.  For people who like to email or text message the BlackBerry s still the best device going.  But they need to do more than that. RIM needs to get aggressive and invest in a real content and applications model that people see as a real alternative to iTunes.  This could easily be done via a comprehensive agreement with Amazon (who also has an interest in unseating Apple).  Now of course we hear that RIM is readying an iPad rival.  This makes it a rival to Amazon also given the Kindle.  Bad, bad idea in my mind.  I think there is far more to be gained by having Amazon on its side than having them as a rival.  Amazon, after all, offers the only real alternative to Apple’s content strategy.

I could go on and on about how RIM needs to ‘re-win’ the smartphone battle and how this requires them to win over both consumers AND the IT community.  It’s achievable with some well executed PR provided they also look at their content/application strategy AND roll out a product line that rethinks their current look.  RIM is where the American carmakers were when the Japanese arrived.  They were focused on the wrong things and just couldn’t see how tastes had changed.  It’s going to be a tough battle for RIM but as of today they have the resources to win if they are willing to take some bold steps and admit some of their mistakes.

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Is BlackBerry about to die?