Mac & Cheese will turn your tweets into ads

On Monday, Crispin Porter + Bogusky began holding quick-fire Kraft Macaroni & Cheese contests, in which anyone who tweeted about Mac & Cheese had a chance at getting his or her tweet turned into a commercial. So far, they've made three spots—one of which (below) aired on TBS's Conan and Lopez Tonight last night, with two others (after the jump) getting posted to the brand's Facebook page. It looks like more Twitter-inspired spots are on the way, with the brand reaching out to people as we speak (and promising a national spot, so the TBS tie-in might be a daily thing for the time being). The brand is really into Twitter lately, having also made the cool Mac & Jinx game. And these new ads are pretty good (if rather non sequitur) for being whipped up in just a few hours. They've got decent humor, and the world's most famous homeless man is still voicing the slogan. Plus, this kind of quick content goes perfectly with the brand. Don't most people only make Mac & Cheese when they're lazy and want something fast?

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Filed under Crispin Porter, Cullers, Food and drink, Kraft, Social media, Twitter
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Charlie Sheen's first paid tweet is a #winner

Judging from his Twitter numbers and the continued media frenzy surrounding his every move, Charlie Sheen is now the most important person on the face of the Earth. Kate Middleton must be fuming! In just 48 hours, Chuck pulled in more than 400,000 clicks for his Ad.ly tweet sponsorship of Internships.com, and by late yesterday, the firm received almost 75,000 applications from folks angling for an eight-week internship with the troubled TV star. Sheen's ad begins: "Do you have #TigerBlood? Are you all about #Winning? Can you #PlanBetter than anyone else? If so, we want you on #TeamSheen as our social media #TigerBloodIntern!" Holy hashtags, is this rummy down with the social or what? Sheen claims to have "TigerBlood" in his veins that protects him from evil. I wouldn't be surprised by anything found racing through his system. As Charlie's intern, "You will learn how to promote and develop the social media network of Hollywood's most trending celebrity." Translation: You'll be scoring drugs for da man. The application deadline is Friday, with résumés due Monday. Emilio Estevez should apply—the buzz could make my dream of a Mighty Ducks 4 a reality. Of course, that fucking Chrysler twit also needs work.

Filed under Ad.ly, Celebrity endorsements, Gianatasio, Internships.com, Social media, Twitter
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Chrysler throws down an F-bomb on Twitter

Whoever was manning Chrysler's official Twitter account on Wednesday morning apparently sucked down too much #TigerBlood before work. "I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to fucking drive," the brand tweeted, much to the surprise of its nearly 8,000 followers. Turns out an employee from New Media Strategies sent out the R-rated tweet (having apparently just suffered through a difficult morning commute), and was promptly fired. Chrysler later apologized, saying: "Chrysler Group and its brands do not tolerate inappropriate language or behavior, and apologize to anyone who may have been offended by this communication." The profanity is one thing—but just as weird is how ludicrously at odds this tweet was with Chrysler's current brand messaging of celebrating Detroit, as seen in its Super Bowl spot with Eminem (who might have approved of the rogue message, actually). What do you think of this? Can any brand use profanity on Twitter—and if so, which brands and when? Via Jalopnik.
  UPDATE: Chrysler said Thursday that it has fired New Media Strategies (i.e., will not renew its contract when it's up), presumably because of this incident. Also, Chrysler has clarified on its blog that it did not request that the culpable NMS employee be fired—that was NMS's decision. But the automaker also makes it clear that the offending tweet was unacceptable. "Why were we so sensitive?" reads the post. "That commercial featuring the Chrysler 200, Eminem and the City of Detroit wasn't just an act of salesmanship. This company is committed to promoting Detroit and its hard-working people. The reaction to that commercial, the catchphrase 'imported from Detroit,' and the overall positive messages it sent has been volcanic. ... With so much goodwill built up over a very short time, we can’t afford to backslide now and jeopardize this progress."
  UPDATE 2: Pete Snyder, CEO of New Media Strategies, offers this statement: "New Media Strategies regrets this unfortunate incident. It certainly doesn't accurately reflect the overall high-quality work we have produced for Chrysler. We respect their decision and will work with them to ensure an effective transition of this business going forward."

Filed under Automotive, Chrysler, Controversy, Nudd, Social media, Twitter
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Jinx, give me some free Kraft Mac & Cheese

Crispin Porter + Bogusky has developed a fun new Twitter game called "Mac & Jinx" for Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. It's based on the old children's game of Jinx, which is played when two people (usually unintentionally) say the same thing at the same time. (Typically, the person who's then first to say "Jinx!" jinxes the other person, who is subsequently barred from speaking until he or she is released from the jinx.) Mac & Jinx works similarly—it uses an algorithm to monitor people who utter the phrase "mac and cheese" on Twitter, randomly selects pairs of them and sends them @ messages and a link offering free Mac & Cheese to the person who responds first. It's a great little game—simple, fun, not too intrusive, and just right for a brand that's decided to be all friendly and smiley lately. ("Have a supremely awesome day," the bot tweets to its players.) Plus, it takes brand control of a game that been associated for way too long with buying someone a Coke. Via Mashable.

Filed under Crispin Porter, Food and drink, Kraft, Nudd, Twitter
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Mind if @charliesheen sells you something?

As you may have noticed, Charlie Sheen just set a new Guinness World Record for being the fastest person ever to reach 1 million Twitter followers. (He accomplished that mean feat in 25 hours and 17 minutes between Tuesday and Wednesday this week.) But he's not just on Twitter for kicks—or to impress more people with the ramblings of his newly enlightened self. He's on it to make money by endorsing products. As GQ reports, Sheen's handlers reached out to Los Angeles-based digital company ad.ly, which set up his Twitter account. Ad.ly specializes in marketing partnerships with celebs, getting folks like Snoop Dogg and Kim Kardashian (and now Sheen) to recommend products and services in exchange for cash (in Kim's case, supposedly $10,000 per tweet). Sheen confirms to TMZ that it's all about the money. ("I'm unemployed!" he points out.) He has yet to make an overt pitch through the account (unless Tigerblood is his forthcoming soft drink), and it remains to be seen whose products he'll endorse. Presumably he will start by peddling his own fragrance. UPDATE: More details here from Brian Morrissey. "We want to be top of mind if they think about monetizing it," says ad.ly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh. "He may never think of monetizing it."

Filed under Ad.ly, Celebrity endorsements, Nudd, Twitter
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Enjoy Twitter ad links without all the Twitter

A common and persuasive argument against Twitter is: "Who has the time?" It's true that Twitter can be a rabbit hole that sucks up big chunks of a day. On the other hand, Twitter is a gold mine for links to useful information. McKinney's Nick Jones hopes to reconcile the advantages and drawbacks with a neat new project called "Crowwws Nest." Jones pretty much quit using Twitter because it took up too much of his time, but he didn't deny the value of it. So, he used the time he wasn't tweeting to build something. Crowwws Nest gathers—oh hell, curates, if that's your thing—the links shared by 250 ad-world tweeters. The site then displays the top 10 most-shared links among the ad world's twitterati. The site updates itself every 15 minutes, eliminating duplications along the way. Jones tells us he worked off our own Adweek 25 list, of which he was briefly a member until he retired to work on more productive matters. Looks like he used the time well.

Filed under McKinney, Morrissey, Social media, Twitter
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Mercedes holds Twitter race for Super Bowl

Mercedes-Benz, which is advertising on the Super Bowl this year, is hoping to drive engagement with something called the "Tweet Race to the Big Game." Beginning four days before the Feb. 6 game, four racing teams led by four celebrities (Serena Williams, Rev Run, Nick Swisher and Pete Wentz) will make their way to Cowboys Stadium outside Dallas from Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Tampa in specially equipped Mercedes vehicles, competing in a series of challenges along the way. The winner isn't who gets there first, but who gets the most points—determined in part by which team generates the most Twitter activity (what Mercedes is calling "Tweet Fuel") along the way. Actually, there's five celebrities, as @LenKendall, one of the Adweek 25, is on Swisher's team. The teams are competing for a pair of 2012 C Class Coupes, so the stakes are high. Mercedes ad chief Steve Cannon says, "We think the combination of our advertising and the Twitter Race will create the type of 'living' advertisement that engages people in new ways." Does it sound engaging to you?

Filed under Automotive, Kiley, Mercedes-Benz, Social media, Super Bowl, Twitter
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The five freakiest ad-world Twitter accounts

@Malecopywriter
Lawson Clarke first got our attention with his innovative approach to his portfolio site, choosing to reprise Burt Reynolds's 1970s Cosmopolitan centerfold pose. His Twitter account is written in his testosterone-fueled persona, featuring mostly NSFW observations. One of his recent musings involved buying condoms while with his infant son. Clarke also has a ribald Funny or Die video out.

@rkrishenbaum
Richard Kirshenbaum has long been a flamboyant figure on the ad scene. He takes a rather curious approach with his Twitter account, dispensing wisdom from on high one bon mot at a time. His recent shtick is an "ad of the day" series that typically involves stuff that isn't advertising. Example: "Ad of the day: first listen to someone else's point of view and it will point you in the right direction."

@milesnadal
The MDC CEO also follows Kirshenbaum's Great Man Theory of Twitter. His account offers a regular stream of links to advertising and business articles, interspersed with deep thoughts from fellow leaders. Nadal is most recently obsessed with sports coaches (Tom Landry, Bobby Knight) and prominent thinkers like Albert Einstein and Andy Rooney. Some food for thought: "Today, you have 100% of your life left. - Tom Landry." Indeed—although not really, if you think about it.

@notsirsorrell
If there's one advertising figure we wish were on Twitter, it's Martin Sorrell. The WPP CEO even turns his letter to shareholders in the company's annual report into a tour de force on geopolitical trends. Alas, he's not tweeting yet. In his stead, Not Martin Sorrell holds forth on all manner of things. His bio sums it up: "I lead. I do not follow. I run things. If you're lucky, I'll buy you." Not Martin Sorrell had this reaction to Campaign magazine's 2010 A List: "#fact I am not on @campaignmag's 2010 A-List. #fact There will be consequences."

@jaffejuice
Joseph Jaffe, industry commentator and exec at social-marketing agency Powered, is no stranger to self-promotion. He's quite fond of hawking his latest book, Flip the Funnel, to his 19,000 dedicated Twitter followers. In the past two weeks alone, Jaffe has mentioned the book no fewer than 20 times. You knew you were in trouble when he started a plea for people to vote for his book for the Small Biz Book Awards this way: "I hate these popularity contests, but I *know* my book is better than several above me - so please vote & share this: http://bit.ly/efE4ka."

Filed under Morrissey, Twitter
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Turn your tweets into lovely wrapping paper

Prediction: We will see a ton of Twitter applications as part of holiday campaigns this year. Samsung is getting in on the act with a tool created by The Barbarian Group. The Tweet Wrap app allows you to turn your tweets—or others' tweets mentioning holiday terms—into wrapping paper. The app is pretty slick, with six different templates as options. The end result is a little befuddling, however. The first time around, I create wrapping paper with tweets I wrote making fun of Tumblr, posting links to AdFreak and complaining about PR people. I'm sure my nieces and nephews will enjoy that. Next, I tried a holiday theme and got tweets from random strangers who had appended the #merryxmas hashtag. Not exactly thrilling. The good news: Samsung is willing to send actual wrapping paper to the first 3,000 users of the app.

Filed under Holidays, Morrissey, Samsung, Twitter
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Latest real-time ad gambit: Twitter drawings

Wieden + Kennedy's response videos with the Old Spice guy have inspired a cottage industry of real-time ad efforts. Poke London is a fan of this craze, especially when it comes to Twitter. The shop already did singing "tweetagrams" for Orange London. Now, also on behalf of Orange, it's offering "Secret Portraits" to tweeters. The idea is, you include the #secretportraits tag on Twitter posts describing what you're doing—e.g., "Eating a burrito in my bathrobe"—and if it tickles Poke's fancy, it will have a student illustrator draw up the scene for you. Poke has ginned up 22 portraits since kicking off the program a week ago. What this has to do with Orange is beyond me, but it's a safe bet this will become a staple of conference presentations.

Filed under Europe, Morrissey, Orange, Poke, Social media, Twitter
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Publicis's Twitter video gets dick-joke remix

Publicis Groupe thought it would be fun to advertise its Twitter feed with footage of staffers (including Maurice Lévy and Kevin Roberts) in their natural habitat, making little chirpy birdie sounds at each other. But shortly after it was released, some prankster uploaded a new version with subtitles for the chirps—which turn out mostly to be dick jokes. See what can happen when remix culture decides to remix you? Check out this page to see the original and the remix (now with more penis!), which implies that Publicis employees spend most of their time taking pictures of their tiny todgers. Via BNET.

Filed under Cullers, Dick jokes, Parody, Publicis, Social media, Twitter
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Adweek 25: hellos and goodbyes, 10/18/10

Over on Twitter, we maintain an evolving list called the Adweek 25, a group that's meant to represent the most interesting advertising and marketing voices on Twitter. Each week, we make additions and cuts to the list. Check out this week's update here.

Filed under Adweek 25, Morrissey, Twitter
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Adweek 25: hellos and goodbyes, 10/8/10

Over on Twitter, we maintain an evolving list called the Adweek 25, a group that's meant to represent the most interesting advertising and marketing voices on Twitter. Each week, we make additions and cuts to the list. Check out this week's update here.

Filed under Adweek 25, Morrissey, Twitter
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Agency sites reborn on Facebook, Twitter

BooneOakley won praise for ditching the tired agency site in favor of a clever YouTube channel to show off its stuff. With social all the rage, Grey Stockholm has taken the next step: It's traded its dedicated agency site to go all-in on Facebook. There, users can "Like" Grey, see work, comment on posts and do the regular Facebook things. Not to be outdone, Argentine shop Kamchatka has recast its site as a Twitter account. Actually, several. Each section of the site has its own Twitter handle. On the surface, this makes lots of sense. Facebook pages are getting more and more powerful, and plenty of campaigns are ditching the microsite in favor of the Facebook platform. Twitter is the current belle of the ball. But at the same time, both sites feel unnecessarily gimmicky. Thanks to APIs, sites can have all the social functions of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without having to choose one or the other. It would seem to make more sense to integrate all sorts of social tools into a destination site rather than choose one platform over another. Via Adland.

Filed under Agency web sites, Europe, Facebook, Grey, Kamchatka, Morrissey, South America, Twitter
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Adweek 25: hellos and goodbyes, 10/4/10

Over on Twitter, we maintain an evolving list called the Adweek 25, a group that's meant to represent the most interesting advertising and marketing voices on Twitter. Each week, we make additions and cuts to the list. Check out this week's update here.

Filed under Adweek 25, Morrissey, Twitter
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Orange turning around singing tweetagrams

Right on schedule, advertisers are drawing up campaigns straight out of the Old Spice social-media playbook. U.K. telecom Orange is putting its own real-time twist on the Old Spice guy's fan-response gambit with an a cappella trio, the Rockabellas, who are on call to deliver "singing tweetagrams" for you. It works like this: You write the tweetagram message to someone, adding the hashtag #singingtweetagrams. Orange picks the best ones and has the Rockabellas record the message in song "within a few hours." Orange then uploads the song and tweets you with a link, so you can send it on to the person. The question will be whether they can keep up the pace set by Wieden + Kennedy in its Old Spice effort, which produced more than 180 videos in a couple days and pumped out responses nearly immediately. Poke London, which also did the very cool Glastotag effort for Orange, is behind the campaign.

Filed under Europe, Morrissey, Orange, Poke, Social media, Telecom, Twitter
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Adweek 25: hellos and goodbyes, 9/24/10

Over on Twitter, we maintain an evolving list called the Adweek 25, a group that's meant to represent the most interesting advertising and marketing voices on Twitter. Each week, we make additions and cuts to the list. Check out this week's update here.

Filed under Adweek 25, Morrissey, Twitter
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Adweek 25: hellos and goodbyes, 9/17/10

Last week, we introduced the Adweek 25, a Twitter list that's meant to highlight the most interesting advertising and marketing voices on Twitter. Each week, we'll be making additions and cuts to the list. Check out this week's update here.

Filed under Adweek 25, Morrissey, Twitter
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The Adweek 25: the top ad voices on Twitter

We've launched a new, evolving initiative to help you follow the best advertising, marketing and media voices on Twitter. Read about it here. 

Filed under Morrissey, Twitter
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Social-media sites get vintage ad treatment

You've gotta love these vintage-style ads for social-media sites, such as "Twitter: The sublime, mighty community with just 140 letters!" Check out four full-size executions here. While it might look like the results of a clever Photoshop contest, this is actually a campaign from Brazilian agency Moma to promote Maximedia Seminars. The tagline on the second page of each spread is: "Everything changes fast. Update." While some of the English is a bit rough, the São Paolo shop deserves credit for capturing the aw-shucks enthusiasm of golden-age American advertising, with lines like the description of YouTube as a place to "send and watch splendid and captivating films." The real proof these ads aren't actually vintage? There's not a single woman getting spanked or male lust tarp in sight. Thanks to my friend Bill for pointing me to this on Laughing Squid.

Filed under Brazil, Facebook, Griner, Parody, Skype, Twitter, Vintage, YouTube
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That's not John Hegarty on Twitter after all

UPDATE: It turns out that @John_Hegarty is an imposter, not Hegarty himself. @BBHLabs was fooled, as were we. But @bbhlondon tweets: "I'm afraid that the recently added John Hegarty on twitter is not the original and the best." Here's our original post:
  John Hegarty, co-founder of BBH, is the latest advertising heavy hitter to hop on Twitter. He joins top brass like Jeff Goodby in sharing his musings. Hegarty's only been at it a day, but so far he's staying away from Foursquare check-ins and what he had for breakfast in favor of ad world bon mots such as: "A real fact about advertising: Our quality is finding qualities. Our weakness is hiding weakness." Also: "Your work is your boss; it can promote you or fire you." There are more. I imagine Hegarty built up a trove of Buddha-like musings on the nature of advertising over three decades, but he might run dry at some point. If there's a model for him to follow, it still must be Alex Bogusky, who has managed to be consistently interesting and engaged in Twitter. So far, Hegarty has stuck to broadcasting without so much as a single reply to others.

Filed under BBH, John Hegarty, Morrissey, Twitter
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Did this tweet merit a $70K copywriting job?

Saatchi & Saatchi L.A. exec Mike McKay's idea of hiring a copywriter based on a single funny tweet seemed like bad idea jeans from the get-go. Still, even with low expectations, he might have set the industry back by choosing a dick joke. The winning tweet, which earned Jonathan Pelleg a $70,000-a-year writing job: "You have to be concise on Twitter. Like a circumcision, everything extra gets cut off whether you like it or not." Really? Let's see, the usual knock on agency creative departments is they're sophomoric male bastions. Doesn't look like that's changing anytime soon. Leaving aside how much this kind of contest trivializes ad writing jobs, it doesn't seem like a good strategy for finding talent. Twitter is mostly ephemera, posted and soon forgotten. Sure, you can probably find good writing talent there, but you're more likely to find it in those who day in, day out write great stuff others feel compelled to share. That's a needed skill in advertising, perhaps even more so than a circumcision one-liner.

Filed under Dick jokes, Job hunting, Morrissey, Saatchi & Saatchi, Twitter
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Talk about Wheat Thins, and they'll find you

Watch what you say about brands. They've gotten the listening memo, and some are even taking action. Following in the harassing footsteps of Domino's, Wheat Thins is now going after tweeters. The Escape Pod created the video below, showing a Prize-Patrol-type van cruising the streets to find people who've tweeted about the brand. For this exercise, they're only seeking those who've said nice things, like Tabitha Hancock, who tweeted, "AAAHHHH Im outta wheat thins... Mi life is officially over!" That missive earned her a visit from the Crunch Patrol armed with a boatload of Wheat Thins. (Actually, Tabitha's story is more complicated than that. The Wheat Thins post was her very first tweet, which seems shady, and her page looks different in the video than online. But The Escape Pod explains all the discrepancies at length here.) Agency founder Vinny Warren also blogs that the shop found its victims with the help of their Facebook friends. His sensible warning: "Don't trust your loved ones!" Meanwhile, if Wheat Thins gets around to harassing the haters, they may come after us first.

Filed under Escape Pod, Food and drink, Morrissey, Twitter, Wheat Thins
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After ban, Twitter ad firms put on brave face

When Twitter dropped the hammer this week on third-party services that place ads into users' "tweet streams," you'd think it would have come as terrible news to those very services, right? Not so! In fact, four such companies have already insisted their futures remain bright. Their hopes hinge on Twitter's definition of "inject[ing] paid tweets into a timeline," which seems to allow paid tweets as long as they aren't dropped in automatically through the Twitter API. Izea CEO Ted Murphy quickly noted that his Sponsored Tweets service only had to deactivate a "direct publishing" option. Participants will just manually post ad content. But surely the crackdown puts a hurt on TweetUp, a new tool meant to boost the search presence of sponsored Twitterers? They're safe too, according to the startup's COO, Jon Kraft. "The vast, vast majority of our plans really are not going to be affected by the terms of service changes," he says. Sure, fine, whatever. Let's go right to the folks at ground zero: Ad.ly and 140Proof, both of which flat-out offer "in-stream advertising." But they're also just fine, thank you very much, according to upbeat blog posts titled "Business as Usual" and "Working with Twitter." I suppose I shouldn't expect these companies to ring their own death knell, but come on, these ultra-sunny forecasts just come off sounding ridiculous.

—Posted by David Griner

Filed under Griner, Twitter
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Twitter canvas painted with followers' brush

Here's a pretty fun Twitter project. Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm, Sweden, has created a piece of communal artwork made up of participating Twitter users' photos. The twist is that the photo size is based on number of followers. The project is called Don't Tell Ashton, since the whole thing will come to grief if Kutcher finds out—he'd cover the whole canvas with his 4.9 million followers. The Berghs students added a nice marketing twist. In order to join, you need to tweet your participation. It's Million Dollar Homepage for the social-media ego era. Go add your photo before Kutcher catches on and sits on your face.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Filed under Arts, Morrissey, Twitter
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