T-Mobile is fast becoming the brand known for bringing the sunshine into people’s everyday lives, in the most unexpected ways. The concepts are simple, but execution is huge, fun and inclusive.

Following its infamous dance event in Liverpool Street station in January, the company upped the ante with a grand-scale karaoke event, attracting 13,500 people to London’s Trafalgar Square.

But the exposure didn’t stop there.

The brand experience extended to creating hubs on YouTube and Facebook, offering the possibility of receiving an exclusive invite to its next event. By embracing the viral element, it’s now creating a growing community of followers.

A brilliant example of a brand that is living up to its promise of ‘Life is for Sharing’.

Thanks to: T-Mobile

We all know today’s conversations take place online. Here, we look at how 2 very different brands are using contrasting approaches to build momentum.

Confectionary brand, Skittles, may score points for its brave integration with social media, but its latest campaign also highlights how being brave isn’t always easy.

To market its new range, ‘Crazy Cores’, skittles.com uses a light-hearted, fun approach to embrace independent conversations about its brand.

Visitors to skittles.com can see other people’s feelings towards the brand and even contribute should they feel like it. As you work through the official site’s pages, you are led to a number of different social media platforms - Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia or Facebook.

Brave? Yes, very. But at the end of the day Skittles has now taken back some control after the campaign stimulated some out-of-hand content, namely crude and pornographic material. To combat this, Skittles now redirects traffic only to sites it trusts is being managed to some extent, like Facebook.
Skittles is achieving a couple of things here. It’s demonstrating to people it understands they want to interact in a social environment that’s more objective than its official brand site. It’s also bravely encouraging all opinions, while choosing to sit alongside them.

Embracing people’s opinion is also on the agenda for the NRMA.

When the 2008 Mini Budget results mentioned no initiatives to improve Australia’s roads, the NRMA decided to provide a platform for people to voice their opinions, with the aim to drive change.

Roadtube.com.au enables people to share what irritates them about the roads.

Look at this example above from Stephen Wright, who attached a camera to the dashboard of his truck and filmed some of the local roads in his village of Dungog in the Hunter Valley. The NRMA is now supporting Stephen by working with the local council, who is in turn lobbying the Federal Government for change.

“NRMA is the white knight here, giving a voice to the voiceless and uniting lone whingers into a vast grumbling army”. Helen Barnes, Research Analyst, Mitchell Communication Group.

An army indeed, let’s hope change is in the making!

Thanks to: Skittles, NRMA – roadtube.com.au, Stephen Wright

Forget hours of laboriously updating social networking profiles and synching contacts with every new site. The big players have invented a way to instantly connect your identity and behavioural patterns.

Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect and MySpace Open Platform now allow you to connect your social networking profile with other websites.

So if you logged on to Expedia.com using your Facebook details and booked a trip, this would automatically sync with your Facebook news feed, letting your family & friends know you’re going away. You can then log on to camerahouse.com.au and allow them to see your Facebook profile, so they can deliver powerful advertising messages based on your behaviour.

From a user’s perspective, it’s about sharing your activity on the web. From an advertiser’s perspective, it now means that sites such as Facebook and MySpace have more information on your behaviour outside of their walls, providing greater opportunity for targeted advertising messages. Now, if only technology could anticipate your needs.

Thanks to: Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect and MySpace Open Platform

We know USBs are handy for moving information between devices, but they are now set to become handy for moving entertainment content and re-positioning brands.

The entertainment industry has turned the file-swapping USB into a relationship marketing tool. Brands like Foxtel and Sneaky Sound System have launched USB sticks that allow their customers to upload and download content online and offline, to share among friends. In effect, these brands are using USBs to stimulate social networking and word of mouth.

Foxtel’s IQ2GO allows IQ2 subscribers to plug into their machine, download a program and take it over to a friend’s house to view, even if their friend doesn’t have an IQ2. Not only has Foxtel mobilised content, but it’s used its current customers to influence and recruit new customers in an innovative way.

Sneaky Sound System launched its new album via a branded USB. For the price of a CD, fans have access to exclusive content, updates, videos, forums and more. The USB content moves with fans, ensuring an evolving relationship with the band.

Who would have thought the old USB would help brands connect with their consumers.

Thanks to: Foxtel, Sneaky Sound System

Ad network company, Beamagpie, is attempting to commercialise the social networking space starting with micro-blogger, Twitter*. Piggybacking off peer-to-peer conversations held within Twitter, Magpie has created an incentives scheme that pays people to push brand messages.

The service offers people a financial reward to allow advertising to be transmitted to their friends who fit a certain profile. Ads are dished out based on key words taking place in Twitter world, which means the one earning the money is under pressure to talk about ‘hot’ topics, while those on the receiving end are more than likely to get a message that relates directly to something they have just been talking about.

Feel like The Truman Show to you? We really can’t see too many pros to this one. Yes it’s new technology, but its purpose feels old – push vs. pull?

This might attract some money-hungry, tech-savvy students, but we don’t think it will do much to enhance brand relations. Our bet is that it will do little more than irritate genuine Twitter users.

We’ll be watching this one closely to see how things transpire.

*Twitter currently has 3 million global accounts, but is attracting attention with Facebook who is currently looking at adding it to its empire.

Thanks to: beamagpie, Twitter, The Social Path

The Twitter phenomenon continues, this time in conjunction with Current TV. As the US election draws to an end, we’ve been watching how they have successfully embraced new media formats and now appeal to a younger audience.

Take the presidential debates - the innovation came when independent cable network, Current TV (Based entirely on user-generated content) co-ordinated Twitter feeds into the debate telecast.

While people could tune in from their home, it also became a public event with hundreds of politically aware hipsters making their way to clubs like the Galapagos Art Space, to watch on a giant screen.

A stream of Tweets ran across the screen during the event, providing an indication of how the candidates were faring in the eyes of everyday American people.

The numbers for this kind of activity may be small, but the effects shouldn’t be underestimated. It shows us all how new media can be embraced in an effort to start a conversation between a brand and a consumer, instantly.

This creates opportunities beyond the arena of politics. The same technology could be used to spark consumer feedback within televised fashion shows, reality TV, music festivals, or sports events.

But be warned, the temptation for the industry to try out these cutting edge social media applications can be fatal for those who do not truly understand how users incorporate new media into their lives – this is not a place for auto response tools.

Thanks to: Current TV, AFP, Twitter, Laughing Squid