Excellent presentation here. Worth your time.

I still haven’t figured this one out? Farmville? No thanks.

Amy from a company called G+ sent me this (I wonder what they think about Google+ incidentally?). “G+ is a community for professionals, academics & entrepreneurs.” You couldn’t make it up.

Anyway, I thought it was mostly common sense but well visualised.

The gender pivoting from major brands was a nice touch and the Dr Pepper example, “It’s not for women” reminds me of the chocolate bar Yorkie here in the UK which was advertised as the real man’s chocolate and dubbed “It’s not for girls”.

More here: http://www.businessinsider.com/this-graffiti-artist-took-stock-for-painting-f…

I’ve played tennis from a very early age at a competitive level so thanks for the infographic heads up Randy!

Full of stats and facts all up to date.

Corporate blogging is on the decline. Facebook and Twitter on the increase.

Via Tom Fisburne —

Next Sunday’s Super Bowl will be one of the biggest social media integrated live events ever, including a 2,800-square-foot social media command center built for the game.

Super Bowl advertisers are building social into their campaigns like never before. GM created a Chevy Game Time mobile app to answer trivia, win prizes, and engage during the game.

Coke is hosting a live game day watching party on Facebook with its polar bears reacting to the Super Bowl and social media in real time. Others have been drip-feeding teasers of their ads on social media for weeks leading up the games.

It’s a big step from last year, when Audi tried to make a lot of hay out of simply using a Twitter hashtag at the end of their ad.

Like every year, the marketing world will be taking note. What’s notable this year is that social will be more than just an afterthought. It will be deeply integrated into the creative itself.

The most important marketing lesson of the Super Bowl is that the quality of the ads often rivals the game itself. They are “ads worth spreading“, an expression that TED coined for a competition that celebrates quality ads: “With this competition, we’re seeking to reverse the trend of online ads being aggressively forced on users. We want to nurture ads so good you choose to watch.”

Social media integration can’t help an ad that isn’t inherently worth spreading. As marketers, we should all create ads so good people choose to watch.