JetBlue’s custom Red Sox-branded Airbus A320 was unveiled at Logan International Airport in Boston today and set-off on its maiden voyage to Fort Myers, FL, the spring training home of our favorite baseball team and also the location of the soon-to-be opened JetBlue Park.

Hope springs eternal and joy returns to Mudville.  Now if we could just do something about that JetBlue NY Jets plane.  JK.

Brand Bowl 2012 Game Day Site

OK football and TV advertising fans, the game day edition of Brand Bowl 2012 is live. Mullen and Boston.com together have launched Brand Bowl 2012, a social media event using Salesforce Radian6 to analyze the Twitter commentary and rate the most popular and disastrous Super Bowl TV commercials.

Realizing how social media has changed the way fans enjoy the game, Mullen launched the original Brand Bowl four years ago when Twitter was just a niche platform. Boston.com, one of the nation’s largest regional news portals, began hosting the information on their site last year. The virtual event at BrandBowl2012.com features an up-to-the-minute stream of Tweets about Super Bowl commercials to determine which brands are the most and least effective. Last year, over 300,000 Tweets were counted to determine the winner of Brand Bowl 2011. Chrysler finished number one and Cars.com finished at the bottom in last year’s rankings. The brands are ranked based on volume (who has the most/least chatter) and sentiment (who has the most/least positive and negative comments).

“Advertising is social, and given that Twitter’s active user base continues to grow and that armchair advertising critics are an expanding population in social media, we expect to get some outstanding data this year,” said Edward Boches, chief innovation officer at Mullen. “The most savvy brands are recognizing the power of social media and have released their commercials before the Super Bowl to build the buzz online, and have been orchestrating elaborate social media campaigns to maximize the impact of their multi-million dollar investments.”

“We’re excited to host Brand Bowl again this year with Mullen, and it gives us yet another opportunity to provide our readers with the interactive experience that they’ve come to expect from Boston.com,” said Ron Agrella, editor of Boston.com. “We aim to not just provide content, but to engage our readers in the public conversation, especially surrounding a significant event like the Super Bowl.”

New features this year include:

• “Head-to-head” statistical breakdowns between brands
• A “featured tweet” section that highlights funny and insightful tweets from participants
• A streamlined Brand Bowl mobile experience so users can more easily see the live rankings and Tweet their votes

Participation in Brand Bowl is easy. During the game, users can reference a specific commercial or simply include the hashtag #brandbowl in their Tweets to voice their opinions. The Tweets will be streamed live on Boston.com and a new mobile-friendly version of the Brand Bowl site during the game.

The single page feature also includes videos of the commercials and lets readers share Tweets, post images, follow conversations and see what other Super Bowl commercial fans are saying – good or bad – about their favorite ads. Post-game, the winners and losers are ranked in these categories: top scores (a combination of volume and popularity), most popular, most volume, and least effective.

Enjoy the game and the commercials everybody and please check back throughout the game to see who’s winning Brand Bowl 2012.

Luckily for Mullen, the 1999 Monster.com spot When I Grow Up is still in the mix. Thanks Teressa and Fast Co. for recognizing this gem from Mullen’s past.

We’re hoping that some enterprising reporter will track down the kids who were cast in this spot and see how their careers are going.  Hopefully they’re all gainfully employed in inspiring jobs with dynamic companies or at least doing something to save the world.

“I’m tremendously excited about Sean coming on board to run digital media and social influence,” said John Moore, Chief Media Officer at Mullen. “His Forrester background makes him a unique asset and embeds in Mullen one of the preeminent thinkers in a space that is keeping CMOs up at night. We look forward to Sean creating a new vision and helping our clients navigate critically important channels like social, mobile and gaming, to name just a few.”

“Integrating different media silos is an imperative for marketers to succeed in the digital era,” said Corcoran. “And to do this at Mullen – with its hyperbundled approach to integrating creative, media, and technology, along with its stellar portfolio of clients such as Google, Zappos, and JetBlue – makes the opportunity even that much more exciting.”

Got it for the Ground Rules videos that kicked off the JetBlue You Above All campaign last fall. Hopefully you’ve seen them online, but we recently turned them into TV :30′s that are playing in big markets where JetBlue flies. They’re embedded below for your entertainment pleasure.

“When we launched the “Ground Rules” campaign and “You Above All” we asked our partners at JetBlue to come to the edit bay in NYC and sit with us to view the rough cuts together,” said Mullen CCO Mark Wenneker. “Feeling a bit nostalgic, I recorded their reaction on my iPhone. There was dead silence followed by a booming uncontrollable Santa Claus laugh from our client Marty St. George and a huge proud smile from our client Fiona Morrisson. This set the tone for the campaign and the relationship we have with this amazingly genuine, fun and determined group of people. It’s honor enough to have JetBlue as a client. This award is just icing on the cake.”

800 attendees gathered for Hatch tonight. From over 1,000 submissions in over 74 categories, 358 Gold, Silver and Bronze awards were presented to ad agencies, in-house creative shops, and students. Every major Fortune 500 brand handled by a New England agency was represented, including Jet Blue, Liberty Mutual, Major League Baseball, Staples, Dunkin’ Donuts, Timberland and Barnes & Noble, to name a selection.

In addition to Best of Show, Mullen won a total of 56 Hatch Bowls, including Golds for JetBlue and Planet Fitness for the spots below.

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to the judges from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, TBWA\Chiat\Day, Wong Doody Crandall Wiener and Fallon.

This Twitter-driven site scores how the Red Sox team and players are faring in terms of positive or negative comments made locally in Boston and across the country. What do you think, maybe leaning a little negative today? The Pulse provides up-to-the-minute rankings and graphs them over time, so fans can see how opinions change from day to day and game to game, although there won’t be any more of those until April. Ugh!

Mullen collaborated with Boston.com and PointsLocal, a pioneer in the emergent field of extracting geosocial business intelligence, to build The Pulse. The single-page feature combines fan participation, social media analytics, Boston.com sports coverage, blog posts, even Instagram photos. It lets readers share tweets, post images, follow conversations and see what other fans are saying – good or bad — about their favorite players.  The Pulse/Boston Red Sox analyzes social media conversation by player, by game, even by state by taking advantage of PointsLocal’s natural language processing and ability to geo-code locations, topics and sentiments.

The platform also offers a sponsoring advertiser the chance to interact with the community in real time and even create advertising using Instagram.

Up next, a New England Patriots version and maybe one for the Presidential campaign in 2012.

It’s a Beta thing for now, but please check it out, use the hashtag #pulseredsox and join the “fellowship of the miserable” as we wallow in the sorrow of the greatest meltdown in MLB history.

Dave Weist and Tim Vaccarino

You know the old Leo Durocher thing about nice guys finishing last? Not true. Witness Dave Weist and Tim Vaccarino, two good guys who just got bumped up to Executive Creative Directors in Mullen’s Boston headquarters. For those of you who don’t know them personally, I suspect you’ll recognize their work. They helped Mullen win the JetBlue and Barnes & Noble/NOOK accounts and have been the creative leaders on the You Above All  and Read Forever campaigns for those two brands. If you’re a U.S. Armed Services member, you may have also seen their Super Bowl spot for the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

Dave and Tim came to us by way of Modernista! and Arnold, where they created a lot of famous work for Cadillac, Hummer and VW.  They have won all the big stuff – Cannes Grand Prix, One Show, Andy’s, Art Directors Club, CA, Clio’s, Grand MPA Kelly Awards, D&AD, AICP and multiple Effies.

“With Tim and Dave, it’s always been about making Mullen better, not making themselves better,” said Mark Wenneker, Chief Creative Officer. “They’ve won accounts, won awards and won the hearts and the respect of all of us. Good things come to good people, but great things only come to a few. And it only seems right to recognize their contributions in a huge way at this point.”

Congrats to these good guys and look forward to seeing their next act of creative wizardry.

Alex Leikikh, President, Mullen Boston

Setting the stage for the next decade of growth at Mullen, the agency announced today that Alex Leikikh has been promoted to President of the Boston headquarters office. Leikikh, who joined Mullen in June of 2009 as Managing Partner, Director of Account Service, has been a key figure in the recent success of the agency that has won it recognition among the elite marketing organizations in the world. Leikikh takes over the President title at the direction of Joe Grimaldi, who had been President/CEO and will now become Chairman/CEO.

“Alex is a winner who’s proven himself to be a talented, courageous and effective leader,” said Grimaldi. “He commands the respect of his partners in Boston and of the entire company. I have total confidence that Alex and his partners will continue to build on the agency’s legacy of exceeding expectations and on our momentum of the last several years.”

Grimaldi has been with the agency for 28 years and has been President for 14 years and CEO since the agency became part of the Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE: IPG) in 1999. He assumed leadership of the agency from its founder, Jim Mullen. In his Chairman/CEO role he will establish future goals and strategies for Mullen and will continue as the key agency liaison with IPG, ensuring profitability and charting investments and resource utilization.

In his new role, Leikikh will lead the day-to-day operations of Mullen’s Boston headquarters in pursuit of the agency’s mission and values. Under his account service leadership, the agency has experienced consecutive years of +20% growth, including winning the highly coveted Zappos business, the equally desirable JetBlue account, the Barnes & Noble brand and innovative NOOK line of e-readers, the fast-growing FAGE Greek yogurt brand, and multiple assignments from Google, among others. Leikikh and his partners on the Mullen management team have also led a talent boom that has attracted top strategic, creative and technology professionals from leading agencies nationwide. The agency’s business growth, elevated creative profile and commitment to innovation won it recognition this year as a Fast Company Most Innovative Company in Advertising & Marketing and as a member of the prestigious Advertising Age Agency A-List. 

“Together with my partners here, we are maniacally focused on developing and growing the country’s most creative and innovative advertising agency,” said Leikikh. “We have enormous talent across so many disciplines – social, digital, analytics, PR, media and, of course, creative – and we’ve proven that our most successful ideas for clients are born from the smashing together, or hyperbundling, of our best cross-discipline brains. We hire the best people in the country and we let them do their jobs in a carefully crafted environment – one which forces collisions, expects strong opinions, lacks hierarchy and puts a premium on street smarts. This place is special, and it’s not by accident.”

Leikikh came to Mullen from Fallon in Minneapolis, where his key account responsibilities included United Airlines, National/Alamo Rental Cars, Garmin and BMW. He was also previously with Leo Burnett in Chicago. On a personal note, Leikikh’s family came to the United States from the former Soviet Union when he was five years old.  During his junior year in high school, Leikikh enlisted in the United States Army National Guard and completed his service upon graduation from Carleton College.

No doubt, you’ve seen the piece. It has a reality show, America’s Most Wanted feel about it. It plays well in day-time television where DRTV is common. There’s a pretty compelling offer ($2.1 million) and a clear call-to-action. The rapid ROI on this sucker was incredible. Broke on a Monday, Whitey gets captured on Wednesday. But, perhaps the most amazing claim of all is that the tip that led to Whitey’s arrest apparently came from Iceland.  For real? Someone in Iceland saw the PSA (most likely through a news report or online) and called in the tip.  Truly amazing testament to the portability of media content in the global digital age. Congrats to the production guy and the PR lady from Maine who put this together for the Feds. Gotta believe business is booming.

Finally, congrats to the strategy team at the FBI. As Dustin told the Herald,

In advertising parlance, they ‘changed the brief,’ and it worked really fast. Instead of going after the scary gangster with the mystique you’re going after this ‘Plain Jane’ dental assistant. She’s harmless, she looks like any woman from Quincy.