McDonald's is ramping up its social-media efforts in the U.S., naming its first director-social media, Rick Wion.
Mr. Wion, who hails from GolinHarris, Chicago, has handled social-media projects for McDonald's since 2006. He was a founding member of the McDonald's Digital Task Force, which established the company's digital strategy.
In an interview, Mr. Wion said his marching orders are three-fold: using social media to build the business, manage customer problems, and beef up outreach to target groups such as mommy bloggers. Mr. Wion will work with the fast feeder's U.S. media relations team, and will soon have support staff. Mr. Wion will report to Heather Oldani, director-external communications and public relations.
Ms. Oldani said Mr. Wion's hire is the capstone to a full year spent devising a dedicated social-media strategy, assessing opportunities and establishing a method of determining ROI in the space. "Now it's time to have [someone] dedicated 100% of the time, rather than someone who's got a day job on top of a day job."
His first McDonald's social-media project, back in 2006, involved a publicity tour for Sarah Ferguson and Ronald McDonald House Charities for which he and his team developed a travel journal. More recently, Mr. Wion was involved in establishing the McDonald's Twitter handle, @mcdonalds, and establishing the process for responding to consumer complaints, among other things. The team has also put in place regulations for regional markets looking to set up their own feeds, like @mcdonalds_cincy. Regions must, for instance, identify their area in the handle in the event there's a promotion in Cincinnati that isn't going on in Philadelphia.
One of Mr. Wion's first major projects will be stepped-up outreach to mommy bloggers, which the chain has been courting for several years through its Moms Quality Correspondents. McDonald's will be reaching out to the group in a variety of ways this summer, Ms. Oldani said.
At Golin, where Mr. Wion was VP-social media, he developed social-media strategies for other major marketers including Unilever, Johnson & Johnson and BP. He also consulted with clients on alternative uses for social media, including FDA-regulated pharmaceutical marketing. Prior to Golin, Mr. Wion was director-client technology at Smithbucklin Corp., where he advised clients in digital marketing, e-commerce and content development.

Abercrombie & Fitch is a brand that seems to have brought about a renaissance to the idea of 'All American Beauty', with Ad Campaign models that are not only frighteningly good looking, but also living ambassadors working for the brand.

This is because in order to even qualify for the chance to become an Abercrombie figurine, you have to first be employed as a shop assistant in an Abercrombie Store. What this boils down to is one cleaver piece of 'product meets marketing meets product'.

Imagine each branch being like a store room of Human Americana, shop assistants that consider themselves the embodiment of perfection, stacking t-shirts in slow motion. While you, the customer, are being served by the people who most embody the brand. While at the same time, the marketing department has an endless source of talent; at arms reach. With models glowing with the look of achievement and maybe appearing more proud having actually been part of the product.

While such a strategy isn't possible or even required here, it's worth thinking about the people who are cast to most reflect a brand, as they are often the real people who are using the brand. There is a symbiotic relationship between the two and raises the importance of street castings and customer involvement in being 'the face' of a customer centric brand.

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Augmented reality definitely has potential as a near future technology, but it's applications so far tend to be interesting yet without much substance.

This example, from England it seems, does a wonderful job of putting the fun in to Augmented Reality with this cheeky concept.

As a result, it manages to effortlessly generate crowd interaction which is truly wonderful. Clearly, people on the street enjoy simple interaction with technology, something which A.R. obviously enables.

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If you have the money, technology can provide some stunning solutions



Here is a short 'making-of', it's in German, so I will translate the basics "Bayer has lots and lots of money, and we wanted something really big and bright to show everyone how much money we really have"



Personally I'd prefer to see this. The world biggest Firework (apparently)

Not exactly new or amazing. But usable media idea nevertheless

Banners that directly interact with a known site's layout, are very effective at grabbing attention of visitors, especially repeat visitors to daily visit sites (as long as it doesn't restrict their browsing too much).

Ads of this kind absolutely need to be of the highest production values in order to impress even the most jaded of surfers, rather than simply annoy them. Giving media house 'click through' results even the quickest of glances, it is clear in the internet world, size is as fundamental as motion, to get people clicking.

Often these banners are fleeting, up only for a day or so sometimes, but they are effective enough to grab attention even within these short periods of time. The downside is they are hard to post links to, so here's one great example. From apple, for an iSomethingorother in little video form.




Note: As you can see, the page loads as the banner runs. It's also fully functional even when it is running.