Doritos won with its “Crash the Super Bowl” consumer-generated commercials. One spot featured a dog who bribed a man with Doritos to conceal the whereabouts of the family cat. A second spot featured a grandmother who sling-shots a baby in a swinging seat toward a tree fort to grab a bag of Doritos from a little boy. The second and third place overall finishers were Swedish apparel retailer H&M with a provocative spot starring soccer star David Beckham modeling underwear, and Chrysler, with a powerful message about the American economic recovery.  The Chrysler commercial starred legendary actor/director Clint Eastwood. The spots appeared during a closely contested game between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots.

 BRAND BOWL TOP SCORERS
When all was said and done, the top ten brands (a combination of volume and popularity) were:

1. Doritos (48,811 Tweets) (Sentiment +29%)
2.  H&M (44,031 Tweets) (Sentiment +14%)
3. Chrysler (33,943 Tweets) (Sentiment +10%)
4. Pepsi (39,765 Tweets) (Sentiment +8%)
5. Chevrolet (36,934 Tweets) (Sentiment +17%)
6. M&M’s (18,316 Tweets) (Sentiment +41%)
7. Budweiser (18,916 Tweets) (Sentiment +12%)
8. VW (17,131 Tweets) (Sentiment +26%)
9. Coke (18,463 Tweets) (Sentiment +4%)
10. Bud Light (15,298 Tweets) (Sentiment +18%)

MOST LIKED BRANDS
Those with the highest number of “positive” tweets were:

1.      M&M’s (Sentiment +41%)

2.      Best Buy (Sentiment +30%)

3.      Doritos (Sentiment +29%)

LEAST LIKED BRANDS
Those with the highest number of “negative” tweets were:

1. Go Daddy (Sentiment -10%)
2. Cars.com (Sentiment -2%)
3. Lexus (Sentiment -1%)

MOST VOLUME OF TWEETS
The most talked-about brands (those with the highest number of overall tweets) were:

1.      Doritos  (48,811 Tweets)

2.      H&M (44,031 Tweets)

3.      Pepsi  (39,765 Tweets)

Mullen and Boston.com, one of the nation’s largest regional news portals, teamed up to present BrandBowl2012, a Twitter/Super Bowl experience that used real-time analytics from SalesForce Radian6 to determine which brands were getting the most and least amount of commentary and which brands were getting the most positive and negative tweets during the telecast. BrandBowl2012 ranked the commercials using some of the most comprehensive social media metrics available to analyze the full Twitter data stream.

This is the fourth year that Mullen has run Brand Bowl and its second year of partnering with Boston.com to create the online experience where participants could view their tweets and see the dynamic brand rankings during the game. New features this year included:

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

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.

But in Las Vegas, Nevada, another primary of sorts will be taking place on January 10. That’s the start of the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), when more than 2,700 exhibitors from 140 countries will attract nearly 150,000 attendees to experience more than 20,000 product launches. For the tech companies that participate, CES is the key time to make stump speeches, roll out their 9-9-9 plans and dazzle media, retailers and the public with their amazingly innovative solutions.

Like Vegas itself, CES is a gaudy, inflated, all-you-can eat buffet of delights. Anyone who has attended the tradeshow can attest: it’s exhausting. Not just because walking the enormous space wears out your soles, but because the information overloads your system.

That’s why Mullen banded together with JetBlue Airways and leading social media analytics provider Pointslocal to develop CE Pulse. It’s a real-time, interactive gauge of online public opinion that helps consumers and marketers filter through the overwhelming hype to understand how consumers actually feel about brands and products. CE Pulse tracks and ranks social sentiment so you can see what’s important to the masses. Which brands and products are leading the pack? What gear do I want to blow my paycheck on in 2012?

CE Pulse is the latest in a series of social media monitoring and analysis projects from Mullen. For the past three years, we’ve held BrandBowl to gauge consumer sentiment surrounding Super Bowl TV commercials. Working with Pointslocal, we’ve also measured consumer sentiment related to major sports teams with The Pulse/Boston Red Sox and The Pulse/New England Patriots.

We think that brands that listen to how consumers talk about them are in a better position to engage in a dialogue with those consumers. Social media monitoring tools like CE Pulse enable consumers and brands to truly understand how the public perceives new products and to filter through the noise to uncover valuable information. As the candidates would say, and brands should learn to say, “It’s not about me—it’s about you!”

For a play-by-play report from our own Wolf in the field, follow @CE_Pulse on Twitter and visit the site.

Hey, speaking of beatbox videos, did you see this one we did for Google?

Our digital holiday project was called Snowify.me, an experimental HTML5 holiday card creator made with Google Maps v3. As you’ll see when you go on the site, you simply type in the location you want to snowify, decorate, and share your panoramic card with the world. And the gallery of decorations includes all kinds of fun icons from 2011, including the lovely newlywed Royal Couple and your friendly “Occupiers.”

A stealth creative and technical team at Mullen put Snowify together and, as you can read on Creativity_Unbound, this kind of was the “Accidental Holiday Card.”

Happy Holidays All!  Let it snowify!

As of Tuesday, Meredith Corp. unveiled the first major advertising client for its Engagement Dividend program. Consumer packaged goods industry leader Kimberly-Clark has signed up to take advantage of this opportunity as Meredith’s “premier advertising partner.”  This partnership will begin early next year.

As advertisers, we recognize the need for proof of performance among our brands. This program could signal a game-changing approach to print advertising, as it brings to an end the days when print was measured solely on soft metrics and puts it more in line with digital measurement.

This production is unlike anything I have done before. In my career, I have placed billions of dollars’ worth of ads for clients and felt little more than the satisfaction of keeping a budget straight; but here, today, we are running radio spots, print ads, banners and straight-up walking into businesses and handing people a website URL that will actually help them — no BS or misdirected strategic frameworks or anything like that. Google is here to help, period. What we are doing is good for them, and if enough people around the country hear about it, it’s good for Google and “Howtogomo.com.” Yeah, it’s marketing and whatever, but we are actually going to help real people and real businesses up close in a place that needs a bit of a pat on the back. So I am not ashamed to admit it: It feels good to work in advertising today. Plus the people in Mobile are so thankful and happy.

So, let’s go! Mobilize Mobile!

GoMo is an initiative that aims to help businesses build mobile-friendly websites. And, in an era when three mobile devices are activated for every baby born on earth, GoMo couldn’t be timelier.

Consider these facts:

• Web searches from mobile devices have increased 400% in the last two years.
• Soon, more people will access the web from a mobile device than desktop computers.
• Businesses can increase consumer engagement up to 85% with a mobile-optimized website.

But in spite of these compelling statistics, only 36% of American businesses have mobile friendly sites. Everyone else is missing out on a huge opportunity to reach customers in a new and very personal way.

As advertising professionals, this is exactly the kind of opportunity we should be encouraging our clients to jump on. A campaign without mobile strategy is really just not a complete campaign anymore. This is as rich and as crucial a field to be playing in as the internet itself was 15 years ago, and the time to do it is now.

And that’s where GoMo comes in. Visit the case study section of GoMo to learn more about how consumers use mobile and understand best practices for mobile sites. You can even run your site — or your client’s site — through the GoMoMeter for a personalized report on how to get mobile-friendly.  Get smart about mobile, and get ready for a revolution in digital creative.

1. Don’t take yourself too seriously. As he put it, “If you’re not getting almost arrested at least twice a week, you’re probably not a fit for our sales team.” Peter’s team is encouraged to use whatever marketing tactics they would have the most fun doing. For example, some of them have carried traditional signage as an umbrella over customers’ heads to walk them into the store. Others have danced on top of vending machines with the signage.
2. Strong culture is the way to cultivate a consistent brand without controlling everything. After Peter mentioned the shenanigans that he encourages his employees to partake in, and the resulting social media content, I asked him how he balances brand consistency with customer and employee participation in the brand. He believes that a strong culture is the best guide for brand consistency. If strong culture is there, you don’t have to worry about policing, because everyone understands what best represents the brand.
3. 

   Franchisee owner Peter Biro

   If you don’t stand for something, you will die. In an age of great access to funding, information and people, Peter believes that if a brand doesn’t clearly stand for something, it becomes vanilla and will die. In the case of Naked Pizza, they took a stand within the category and suggested that pizza doesn’t necessarily have to be unhealthy. To stand by that belief, they create relatively healthy pizza from organic, quality ingredients. In a saturated pizza market, Naked Pizza stands for quality and well-being.

4. Good and authentic content creation comes from within. Instead of hiring social media content creators or paying influential digerati, Naked Pizza Boston empowers their staff to create content on behalf of their brand. Many of the fun sales and marketing tactics also serve as entertaining social content.
5. You don’t need to be perfect all the time; just learn from mistakes as quickly as possible. As a result of his software background, Peter understands the value of iteration. Yes, we’re all sick of the word, but so far this understanding of “failing fast” has served Peter and Naked Pizza.

Peter has a background in software engineering, but I would argue that he knows more about modern branding than many advertising agency executives.

The Situation

Millions of children across Somalia and the Horn of Africa are suffering a deadly combination of drought, escalating food prices and armed conflict.

The famine in Somalia is swift and dreadful. More than half of the population—4 million people—is in crisis. In the six famine districts, the number of people affected has doubled since July. Without urgent assistance, more than 160,000 children in southern Somalia will die in the coming weeks.

For more information on the famine and UNICEF’s work in the region, please visit this site.

A New Kind of Response to a Big International Disaster: 50/50

Mullen has joined an ad-hoc network of contributors spearheaded by Made by Many, called 50/50.  50/50 is a kind of digital folk movement that’s convened to try and do something actively to help the people of East Africa.

In a nutshell, 50/50 is a fairly insane experiment to create a platform of 50 digital projects in 50 days to raise £1m for famine relief in East Africa.

You will see projects by some of the world’s biggest ad agencies—JWT, BBH, Leo Burnett, SapientNitro, Mullen, Fallon, CHI, Arnold, Butler Shine—as well as from some amazing individual makers and people who just want to do something.  Most of these agencies actually compete with each other in day-to-day life, but have come together for this cause.  What’s even more remarkable is that we are all doing this in our spare time—evenings and weekends.

This marks a new kind of response to a big international disaster and highlights a new type of behavior. 50/50 is definitely part of a much broader trend towards active, experiential fundraising that is embedded in social networks and the living web.

Mullen’s 50/50 idea: the Good Belly Project

Americans love food—we watch it on TV, we go out of our way for it, we bond over it, and now, we even photograph it to share with our friends in social media.  In a nation of abundance, how can we use this juxtaposition of feast and famine to build awareness to our cause? Mullen has decided to turn the trend of taking “glamour food shots” into the very vehicle that will help feed famine victims in East Africa, and we’ve called it the Good Belly Project.

It’s easy: use Instagram and hashtag #goodbellyproject when you go to participating restaurants

Foodies love food so much they take photos of their meals to share with friends on social media.  So Mullen partnered with Boston restaurants to mobilize these foodies for our cause.  We’re asking foodies to use a popular photo-sharing iPhone app called Instagram to photograph the food or drink they order at participating Good Belly establishments.  For every photograph taken and tagged with both our hashtag (#goodbellyproject) and restaurant location, the restaurant donates $1 to the cause.

Mullen wanted to make this charity fun for Boston foodies, so we’ve centered it on enjoying what you already love to do rather than depriving yourself like other charities ask you to do.

The Good Belly Project kicked-off on World Food Day, Sunday, October 16, 2011.

So go ahead, eat, take pictures and help fill the bellies of children in East Africa.