Did you know that Moms in the US are currently spending $2.1 trillion annually? (Source: *2011 Shopping Rituals Report)

This is probably one of the best, emotionally charged commercials I have ever seen. Kudo’s to P&G for not selling us product, but for recognizing the individuals who do so much for us, our Moms.

They also have a great social media strategy to top it off… check it out and say “Thank you, Mom” by sending your Mom a message of thanks on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thankyoumom.

I am now going to buy some Tide. Not because I need it, but because I want to support a company that recognizes the individuals that are so important in our lives. That is why this campaign will be so successful.

• realtime feedback on the customer sentiment of your brands
• insights into whats working, and especially what is not
• instant notification of crises and ‘peaks’ in conversations
• trends… that could essentially be turned into opportunities

Then think about all of the ways you could use this information. Data for merchants that could impact product sales or opportunities. Information for different business units information on how they could make operational changes that can impact bottom line and/or brand health (i.e. customer service). Opportunities for marketing to make changes to messaging to better align with how people are ‘actually talking’ vs. how we ‘think they talk’. Understanding of conversations and terminology that could influence SEO and SEM programs. Ability to become relevant at exactly the right time to your audience.

The opportunities go on and on… do you hear me?

“Culture eats strategy for lunch every day.”

Have a strategy for your strategy – because whatever plans, strategies, etc. that you have created… it’s company culture that will be the deciding factor on whether it happens or not.

Convenience: What if I could check out from my hotel room via Foursquare and my receipt was automatically emailed to me? (Apple does this really well when purchasing items at their store).

Making you feel special: What about checking out of a restaurant via Gowalla which triggered your check to your table (we all hate waiting for the check), your coat ready at the door, your valet to bring the car to the front or a taxi called, and an emailed survey allowing you to share your experience.

These are simple examples, but there seems to be just as much value with checking Out as with checking In. Would love to hear some of your ideas… share below.

On the top floor of the store, a glass-frosted door and a smiling face welcomed me into the customization factory and into a one-on-one consultation with a NikeID expert. Now, you can experience this yourself on the nike.com website, but there is something to be said about being able to see and feel all of the different fabrics, try on the different sneakers that can be customized, and then see it being built in realtime on huge flatscreens in this fancy room. And, I must admit, I made me some fancy kicks.

This experience totally makes you feel like part of the process. And why wouldn’t it, you just created your own sneakers. Not to mention how when exiting this room, you now walk then entire store looking for gear that matches your new fancy footwear. Brilliant if you ask me… they don’t even have to try and upsell you, you upsell yourself (hello UPT’s) – and you don’t even feel guilty about it.

There are similar experiences I have seen by footwear companies, but this by far was the most exciting of them all. You totally feel like V.I.P the entire time, and there is a lot to be said about that.

Which brings me back to online shopping – yes, I can surf the web, fine great deals, search for coupons on the fly and discount codes… but I will never feel a sense of accomplishment and pride like I did in the Nike store that day and making the shopping experience fun again.

Thank you NIKE for being awesomesauce.

I think Radian6 sets a good tone here on how their community managers actively monitor their brand and engage at every opportunity. I heard someone once say, “conversations are also opportunities, and if you dont respond, one of your competitors will”. We are seeing more and more that companies are now embedding social feeds into their own corporate websites, and I see this as only continuing as companies start to realize they don’t own the content anymore, the users do, and they want to embrace that.

Message: listen to your brand mentions, and when possible, BIG THEM UP. They are your best advocates.

It all started with radio and ad campaigns, competitors calling each other out over quality of products or who does what better, even today I still enjoy the TV commercials of Pepsi and Coke going at it. But now that we live in the world of social conversations, chat rooms and influencers, where does the line get drawn? In the world of Twitter, which is now a viable resource and influential arena for B2B and B2C companies alike, what constitutes a competitive tactic or spam?

So here is my question to you:
Would it be ok if Pepsi used the Coke hashtag (#coke) in their tweets? to help them reach a new audience? to help disrupt Coke’s marketing campaign? to redirect traffic from an event?

Or is this considered spamming?

I would really love to hear your comments on this, as it is very easy to replace Pepsi and Coke with any company’s name and a competitor. Unless of course you think it is ok for B2C, but not for B2B, which then I would love to hear your comment on that as well.

1. Embrace your social initiatives. From the Samsung homage you can tweet (w/ hashtags is a bonus), link to Facebook and “Like” basically everything, click to add photos, see videos, read reviews and click to “Buzz” which is another way to link to external articles (blogs). In other words, almost all of this content lives somewhere else, in social-land. This seems to fall inline with their social media tactics and is a nice play to encourage engagement.

2. Pull the trigger and GO! Everything is so much about being and doing in “realtime” with social media and Samsung was able to pitch their vision and get this implemented in a 2 week timeframe. THAT is impressive. How fast you implement is almost as important as what you implement sometimes.

You have to be ready to strike while its hot and I think Samsung did a great job at that with this redesign. I am sure we will see more from them in the upcoming months and I look forward to how far they can push things. And I am always looking at the great work Jess3 does.

Also, check out their open application to dev people for app ideas for their TV line. I always hear people bragging about these great iPhone app ideas they have, so here is a chance to get it on TV too.

The analogy used, which I think is a good one was: think of the time you spend pitching to an exec as a cash register, every minute that passes, money is spent (ching-ching), because their time is so limited that every minute is money not being made somewhere else. (or something to that effect, you get the point). I guess for whatever reason I never really thought of it that way. I get the whole “they are tight for time” thing, but I always thought that when you finally got your time, you used it to the max because you dont get second chances to pitch first ideas. But when you work in a sales environment and those execs are the ones helping close deals, I get it.

This had me thinking, how can I self teach myself better to get to the point faster? Less bullets on a slide (pull out the deets)? Talk faster (speed talking is fun)? Go high level and leave the details for later (whats this idea for again)? … OR reward myself for being rewarded? By that I mean, turn that timer around and give the $$ to myself. Now I know, paying myself out of my own pocket for doing my job doesn’t even begin to make sense, but if I can figure out a reward system for myself, this might work.

I have 5 slides. I start off with $25 and start going backwards. Not sure what a good goal is, but am thinking each solid slide should take me 1 minute. For every minute I go over on each slide I lose $5. So 5 slides in under 5 minutes, for every minute saved, I double the dollar amount (4 mins=$50, 3mins=$75) and put it towards a gift for myself. 5 slides in 5 minutes, it is a wash. Now here is the fun part… 5 slides in 6 minutes means I keep $20 and give $5 to my wife. 5 slides in 8 minutes means I keep $10 and $15 goes to my wife. And to top it off, if I hit 10 minutes (double time) on 5 slides, she gets all $25 and I have learned a valuable lesson: “make sure next time I don’t go over my time anymore.” (maybe I need to start with quarters)

The way the video shows how historic moments from the World Cup can have worldwide affects is great. Miss a shot, a country groans together, save a goal, you get knighted! And the clip when Ronaldinho does foot tricks transitioning to YouTube, showing view rates skyrocket, people imitating throughout the world, finishing with Kobe after dropping a shot. The power of social media, integrated closely with the worldwide audience.

From what I have read, the Wieden & Kennedy, Amsterdam spot just became available today for viewing.  This piece was directed by Alejandro Inarritu (“21 Grams,” “Babel”) and features soccer stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Landon Donovan and Ronaldinho and Homer Simpson.

What do you think?  btw, the video had over 100k views in the time it took me to post this.