Grown Up Thinking

From outlandish one-on-one encounters to themed bar nights, ChatRoulette has swept the nation with its unapologetically uncensored take on the classic internet chat. Marketing types around the world held their breath wondering who would be the first brand to tap in to the 500,000+ unique users per day.

And the winner is…. French Connection. The international clothing brand has launched a ChatRoulette competition challenging participants to use the service to seduce a woman in exchange for a $250 voucher. Risky move for an international brand, considering the proliferation of shady stuff going down on the site. But foolish or not, they’ve been getting a lot of coverage for being the first.

Only time will tell if ChatRoulette can become a useful tool in the marketer’s arsenal. Thoughts?

There are many among us who cherish the days when we get to indulge in a hearty breakfast of pancakes and syrup instead of our usual cup of coffee and too much to do. Well today is our day, because it is officially National Pancake Day according to IHOP, and the folks over at the famed food shop are taking a new approach to promoting it with a Web 2.0 spin!

For starters, IHOP enlisted Miss America 2010 to be the official spokesperson for National Pancake Day to support the nationwide promotion and tie-in with the Children’s Miracle Network. On the official National Pancake Day website consumers can share information via their social networks and sign up to receive celebrity wake up calls reminding them to celebrate with some pancakes. If you’re one of the 74,000+ IHOP Facebook fans you may have noticed that you were automatically sent to the National Pancake Day tab this morning while IHOP employees across the country took to their local IHOP Twitter accounts to spread the news about the promotion and were even triumphant enough to earn IHOP a spot in the coveted “Trending Topics” list on Twitter. Overall I’d give IHOP an “A” for effort, but a “B” overall for their Web 2.0 centered celebration. They’ve got a lot of room to make this a full-blown social media extravaganza, and this is a great step in that direction.

Though I missed the Super Bowl entirely, I did manage to catch up on all of the ads after the fact thanks to YouTube’s glossy showcase of Super Bowl commercials: AdBlitz .

I diligently viewed every ad from all four quarters of the game, and have outlined here a list of all the ads that made me LOL. Which, if you caught my previous post, you know that is something of a rarity.

Here’s the rundown of the most LOL-worthy spots of Super Bowl XLIV:

1. Snickers: Game (featuring Betty White)
For whatever reason, I’ll watch pretty much anything that involves Betty White. She’s delightful. But this spot in particular had me howling like Tom Hulce in Amadeus. Delight turns to pure magic when Betty delivers her first and only line.

2. Vizio - Forge (featuring Beyoncé)
This spot is a close second in my book of LOLs. The real clincher for me is the YouTube Celebrity/Meme theme: particularly, David at the Dentist’s inclusion is nothing short of comic genius. I’m a sucker for traditional and new media cross-pollination!

3. Doritos - House Rules
Cute little kid shows us who’s boss. This LOL smacks you right in the face with some LOL-worthy sass.

4. Dodge Charger - Man’s Last Stand
This commercial epic and comic ode to any man who has lived with a significant other or experienced a serious relationship. As a guy who’s lived through both, I had to resist the urge to bust out my air guitar at the climax of this spot.

5. Kia Sorento - Big Game
This commercial harkens back to something many of us wonder as children- do our toys have thoughts/feelings? Oh, maybe that was just me? Anyway, this commercial brings to life some hilarious fantasies from our favorite childhood toys.

That’s a wrap! Hope you enjoyed Super LOL 2010 - feel free to post your own Super LOL list in the comments!

Facebook is celebrating its 6th birthday this week, which seems a good a time as any to reflect on its path to world domination.

Let us not forget Facebook’s humble beginnings as “Thefacebook”. As if they were concerned there could be another one, this was THE facebook for all your networking needs. That is- assuming you’re an ivy leaguer buried in books in the Bay State. May I remind you that at its inception “Thefacebook” was only available to students at Harvard, where creator Mark Zuckerberg held his dorm room brainstorm sessions.

What you may not know is that even before “Thefacebook” there was “Facemash”- a Hot or Not game Zuckerberg created after hacking into Harvard’s computer network and stealing his peers’ student ID photos. “Facemash” generated 450 visitors and 22,000 photo views in its first four hours online.

I still remember the Facebook buzz growing my sophomore year of college- eagerly anticipating my D2 school’s addition to “the list”. This came around the beginning of junior year, my three roommates and I wasting hours of valuable study (and party) time polishing our profiles until they became a sharp snapshot of who we each were (on our best day, of course.)

I clearly remember my attempt to demystify the “poke” and debating with actual, legit friends what the rules were for deciding “Facebook friends”. Today, Facebook has 400 million members and anyone, anywhere over the age of 13 is allowed to join.

This tremendous growth doesn’t look to be slowing either. Membership this year is double what it was on Facebook’s fifth birthday. The social networking powerhouse also blew out the candles with some celebratory changes this week, including a shuffling of menus and an apps and games dashboard.

As we enter the “tear it up” 10s we should be in for a wild year in all areas of American culture- entertainment, technology, sports, and media. Since Twitter has become such a critical source for news dissemination, I thought it would be appropriate to share some predictions for 2010 in the form of Tweets:

1. @TigerWoods: feels great to be back on the course and winning again

2. @BarackObama: We never said we were out of the woods

3. @MTV: Ask and u shall receive! Excited 2 announce #JerseyShore renewed til 2015

4. @ESPN: SportsCenter in 3D premieres tonight- get ur glasses in today’s @USAToday

5. @Mashable: Facebook Announces Premium Account Service Offering $1/mo Subscriptions with Enhanced Functionality: http://bit.ly/19ksST

6. @The_Real_Shaq: #Italwaysfeelsgoodto hoist that trophy

7. @JamesCameron: Humbled by #Avatar passing Titanic as top-grossing film of all time

8. @AlGore: Don’t believe the hype, I am not running in 2012

9. @PerezHilton OMG! OMG! Tom and Katie are history

10. @NFLNetwork: 2011 lockout looms large for next season

11. @IMDB: Shooting for The Sopranos movie seen around Northern NJ yesterday

12. @VirginAmeria: Now offering @Skype seats for in-flight video conference in select “noisy rows”

13. @EbertChicago: Sex and The City 2: Two thumbs down!

14. @Gizmodo: The #SkiffReader is our 2010 tech device of the year

15. @JimJCramer: It is still not too late to get out of the dollar and into commodities

16. @CNN: 36 countries report internet outages for as long as 9 hrs as a global task force is created to identify what happened http://cnn.com

17. @LadyGaga: Just found out I’ve been selected by Richard Branson for Virgin Galactic’s first ride to space

18. @JimGoldman: Google discontinues #NexusOne citing lackluster sales

19. @APlusK: This tweet is sponsored by @Coca_Cola

20. @SergeyBrinn: We have officially ceased Google.cn. We recommend using @Baidu

What other tweets do you expect to see?

Just in time for the holidays, JetBlue has opened a posh boutique in Manhattan’s hip Meatpacking District…but you can’t buy anything there. The store is touting it’s exclusive line of travel products (The Flyer’s Collection) to help you cope with the oh-so arduous task of flying with “the other guys.” The jokester stunt is definitely eye catching. I would totally drop some dough on my personal favorites: the Marshpillow (a pillow made of marshmallow to help you cope with stress, hunger and comfort) and the Yumbro robot (dispensing friendly compliments and Terra Blue Chips. Holla!)

Feel free to pop over and browse the entire collection on 14th Street & 9th Avenue near the Mr Youth offices or check it out online on JetBlue’s Facebook page. Stunt marketing like this is nothing new, of course, but I commend JetBlue for not taking itself too seriously. When brands engage consumers in new and hilarious ways, people certainly take notice. Although my mother can’t buy me anything from this exclusive collection for the holidays, I’ll certainly accept a JetBlue flight (hint, hint).

Foodspotting: way better’n Urban Spoon.

Stella Artois YouTube Channel: Beautiful creative curation from a brand that manages the tricky balance of honoring its roots while still seeming fresh.

Well, let’s face it. The new Stella campaign in its beautiful entirety.

The World’s First Crowdsourced Magazine Cover: would have been even better if it was executed by Good (another crazy obsession of ours).

The Body Image Project: Picking up where Dove left off, and adding a dedicated social media angle. Check our their Twitter handle- great practices in a very short time.

Canon Freeze Tag: how can you NOT love this execution?!?! Besides. It features a great track from the Go Team, a band frequently heard in our cube when we need a boost mid-afternoon.

221B: a splendid use of Facebook Connect to promote the new Sherlock Holmes movie. Dark, compelling, beautifully designed and effective (NOT like Welcome to Fight Club, which we wanted to love but was just totally arbitrary).

Pull a Volkswagen. Create an engaging video from an amazingly simple (yet beautiful and playfully nostalgic) experiential stunt. When combined with a clean microsite & a fun UGC contest, this is the kind of work that gives me the warm fuzzies.

Go to TheFunTheory.com to see how all the parts play (and I DO mean play) together nicely.

Though my own style proclivities veer more closely to the moody (frequently opting for the trifecta of black+booties+tousled hair, like this lovely lady), I found this great interactive-slash-mobile campaign for Ralph Lauren on PSFK today that might have me wearing a rugby shirt faster than you can say “sassy sartorialist.”

The long & short of it: consumers are given the chance to fully customize a Rugby jersey using either a free iPhone application or using a touchscreen window display at the Ralph Lauren store in Greenwich Village. Buy it, share it, post it to Facebook- it’s up to you. Finally, try it on for size by dropping your own photo into the image, and submit it to a public gallery.

Ultimately, it’s a great example of how brands can use mobile to drive to retail in an innovative way while giving fashion-friendly fans the chance to make a statement in fully personalized gear using technology.

We all know how annoying it can be to hear a song in an ad and not be able to find it anywhere. Apparently enough people felt that way about the latest Ritz ad that the brand responded in a very interesting way. Ritz learned through comments on YouTube that consumers were searching for the happy tune featured in the spot, but were unable to find it online.  The brand responded by posting a video stating  that they would turn the 30 second jingle created specifically for the ad into a full-length song if the video achieves 10,000 views on YouTube.  The song will be available on iTunes with all profits going to the artist.

At the time of this blog post, the video had just over 7k views, so it looks like this ditty is destined for a full-length future. Though the whole backsory may be faked by Ritz’s agency and most would argue that 10k views does not a viral video make, this is still a smart way for a brand to use social media as both a messaging and listening tool.  It also goes to show that sometimes the most compelling social media executions are the simplest.  Contrived or not, this one, like the product itself, is like “buttah.”