And then Budweiser Canada farked it all up for me and went and made one of the greatest Superbowl commercials of all-time. I’m already a Bud Light Lime freak and then this happened.

For the 3 people that don’t know, hockey is life in Canada. I don’t even play and it still holds a special place in my heart. You don’t even have to like the sport to love this. When I saw this video today, it connected on a level that most brands try but never ever reach.

You want people to share your brand? Do something awesome like this:

The look on the guy’s face sitting on the ice at the end made me tear-up. This was made for a Superbowl commercial in Canada, but will out last the game itself. That should be the goal of any campaign: make it so awesome that it achieves word-of-perpetual-mouth-motion.

For those that may miss it, these guys play recreational hockey. They aren’t in a pro league, there are never any fans at their games, they do it for the love of the sport.

I was told about the video by a Twitter friend Ameer Khan who was one of the players on the ice! I asked him what he thought of Budweiser now, his reply:

Now if that isn’t a testimonial to a success for a brand, I don’t know what is.

Well done Budweiser Canada, you win the Superbowl and the Internet.

http://www.facebook.com/budweisercanada

https://twitter.com/budcanada

+UPDATE+

Many people have commented and tweeted that this is a direct copy of the Improv Everywhere video from 2008:

So, what do you think? Does it change the impact of the new one?

I’ve had campaigns ripped off from past client work, and I hated it. I just hope Budweiser threw them some money, or a truck-ton of beer.

Hopefully someone from them or their agency can comment.

+++UPDATE #2+++

I reached out to ImprovEverywhere and Charlie Todd got back to me and said:

“Thanks for updating your post to reflect our original version of this idea in 2008.

To answer your question, no we were not paid by Bud.  They did not reach out to us at all.

Not the first time a brand has heavily borrowed one of our ideas.  It’s always irritating, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

Here is the link to the video and all the awesomeness that went with it.

How about it Budweiser? Send those guys a case of beer or something? Would be a great gesture to wrap this story of awesome in a pretty bow.

Ten days into the new year and I think we already have a champion.

No, it’s not the N-Control Avenger PR Disaster that rounded out 2011. Nor was it the FedEx foul-up.

Let’s say you own a BBQ joint and a customer comes in, one of the only ones and orders a meal. You can tell she’s not happy and it’s verified by a well-written and factual review on Yelp.

So what do you do to make it right?

A) Get in touch with her and offer a meal for free to make it up?

B) Respond to the Yelp review by apologizing and explaining the issues

C) Call her a bitch and post her pic on Facebook

If you picked C, then you may have a new fave BBQ joint to hang out at!

Here we go, ready? Buckle up your brisket:

(All pictures are linked to their file, so if you’re on a phone and they’re tough to read, just click it)

1. Stephanie and her husband go to Boners BBQ in Atlanta for a meal after grabbing a $10 off coupon from Scoutmob.

2. They leave and she posts her review on Yelp. One of the better written reviews on the site to be honest. She lists the things she liked and didn’t like, with reasons why. Not an all-caps “ZOMG!! THIS PLACE IS HORRIBLE!”

3. After seeing the Yelp review and being told she didn’t tip the server, the person who runs Boners BBQ Facebook page decides to put her in her place by posting her picture (censoring by me, they put the unedited photo up):

And they added both this description and follow-up comment:

4. So, like most places on the Internet, the morons were there first saying things like “F&$K YA!” and other eloquent expressions, clicking “Like” to share it with their other Grade 10 classmates. Then people started commenting on how it’s wrong to post her picture and call her names and they replied with remorse and maturity… just kidding, they told her to F&$# Off too!

5. Now the owner jumps in, to bring some logic and sanity to it?

The logic of “She left us a bad review on Yelp so we can say what we want on our wall!!” really pushes the public’s buttons and a mass of comments hit their wall. Your wall or not, nothing can stop the Geekalanche once it starts.

6. They pull the entire status and comments and also delete any other posts that come in about it, which just makes people angrier. They end up posting an “apology” which is what I’d advise a client to do, just not so…..well…insincere.

You just get this feeling that they’re not apologizing for what they did, but that they wanted to stop the mass amount of anger.

7. It becomes pretty clear when they post in the apology comment thread later:

Yeouch. He had it perfect, explained what they’ve been doing, got frustrated and had a bad “moment”. Annnnd then reminded everyone there is no excuse for not tipping. What he doesn’t understand is it’s not about tipping or not (although if a tip is mandatory, then it’s a fee and should be stated as such) it’s about how you deal with people. We are a forgiving society if you just own-up. FedEx is a great example of that.

8. As it turns out, she said she DID tip. She posted on Reddit about the experience:

That Facebook post was about me. That picture is me. I can give some background on this if anyone wants to know. The basics are that my husband and I went to Boner’s BBQ for his birthday dinner. We were enticed there with a Scoutmob coupon (for $10 off) and we were the only ones in the place for our meal except for a brief period where a couple came in to get a pickup order. We paid in cash and yes, we left a tip. The ticket was $40 even minus $10 for the coupon + tax= $32.80 We dropped two twenties on the table and left. And yes, I did, politely, let the waitress know that the food wasn’t as I expected and no, I didn’t lick the plates or even eat all the food, that was my husband. He is far less picky about his BBQ than I am.

So what can we take from this? This isn’t a “social media” problem. You don’t train people not to call customers a “bitch” on Facebook and post their picture. (I’m picturing George Costanza saying “Was that wrong?”

Social media doesn’t make a business bad or good, it amplifies what they already are.

So, does this hurt their business or are you one of those “Any PR is good PR!” people? Will she sue? Comment below!

And one of you has to explain to my family why I have 9 screenshots on my desktop called “Boner”. Thanks.

Special thanks to Johanna Harrison and Michael McCready for the screenshots and heads-up. With my second book due to my publisher at the end of the month, it practically writes itself

+++UPDATE+++

So realizing the error of their ways (or it was the fact that news cameras showed up at their place (broadcast embedded below), and the Huffington Post blogged about it, they decided to give a little more sincere apology… but not really:

Looks pretty good right? And that’s that!! Problem solved…………… Orrrrrrr not.

Next someone adds this comment:

Not sure the worst part here: the fact that he calls people assholes, the fact that the woman actually DID leave a tip, 20% at that, or the waterboarding. Yeah, the waterboarding part. But this isn’t Boners BBQ that wrote it, they can’t control what some jackalope says on their wall right? You see that little “thumbs-up” sign with a 4 beside it? Let’s see who the 4 people are who clicked “I AGREE!!! ME LIKE!” beside the assholes/waterboarding comment:

Would ya look at that….. Doesn’t make the apology seem so sincere now does it?

Some people have asked what would I advise them to do if they were my client…

And I tell them they never would be. No amount of social media or marketing help would ever trump crappy product and a crappy attitude.

Customers should not be afraid to leave honest reviews for the fear of being publicly humiliated.

Today’s News:

There are countless blog posts online about how out of touch PR people are with trying to reach influential bloggers/social media types. From mass-emailed blind press releases to not understanding how social media really works.

I finally have a story that is the opposite.

Many of you have heard of, or even read the story about Tassimo’s campaign in Canada in my book, (great post about it from Erin Bury here) and how they spread the word about the coffee maker by giving machines to influencers instead of a TV campaign.

It was pure genius on many levels, and so much of it had to do with Duri Al Ajrami, the Director of Social Marketing – Senior Partner at OgilvyOne Canada.  It was his ability to connect with me and many others that made us even open to the thought of this campaign. He emailed us after doing his research, met with us and understood how it all works, being the beloved go-between for their client and us crazy social media/blogger entitlement types

Fast forward to a month or two ago: I have been approached hundreds of times since by PR/Communication folks to try out their stuff and in return I can give them free exposure. For the most part I don’t even blink. It’s like they just went from blindly faxing reporters to blindly emailing bloggers. Then Duri drops me an email and explains that Magnum Ice Cream is launching in Canada and they want me on board, I’d hope it was because of my rugged good looks and boyish charm, but mainly because I have a platform.

He said all the right things: I only had to tweet/blog if I wanted to, only talk about it when/if I wanted to. He knew I wasn’t going to post a blog on UnMarketing as a “sponsored” post to say how yummy their ice cream is. His main concern was that I did anything that I was comfortable with and my audience would be too. We high-fived, they shipped me a case of ice cream in dry ice, I ate most of it in a 2-day binge, reflected on what went wrong that made me eat a case of ice cream in 48 hours and then decided to record this video (I haven’t even gotten to the awesomest part yet, keep reading):

I thought it was a fun way to talk about it! I even titled it “Magnum’s False Advertising”, which I’m sure made the client throw-up a little. I talked about how the box said the flavour was “Double Chocolate” even though there are actually four layers of chocolate, and I demanded it be changed to “Quad Chocolate”. Duri loved it, I enjoyed making it because I was my smart-ass self, and my friends liked it. They didn’t even mind that a lot of people who watched it wouldn’t be able to enter the contest since it’s only open to Canadians. Perfect. All good, everyone’s happy, let’s go home and eat ice cream?

Think again.

Duri just showed up at my house (he emailed first, relax) and said “I have a gift for you!” And handed me this:

Are. You. Kidding. Me?!?!

If you didn’t catch it, look at it again.

They loved the video so much, they “whipped up” four custom boxes of the ice cream with my new flavour description. And these aren’t stickers slapped on, it’s four real boxes, with the ice cream bars inside.

I literally lost it in the driveway, ran upstairs and am typing this right now.

Just because you’re in an agency, doesn’t mean you can’t be awesome.

PR doesn’t have to stand for Press Release. It can still mean Public Relations.

When you do awesome things, it makes people want to share the awesome.

It wouldn’t matter how much they paid me, I wouldn’t use this blog to promote ice cream.

And now I just did. Because of the awesome.

Well played Duri and Magnum, well played indeed.

Has anyone outreach/agency really blown your mind? Share it in the comments.

+UPDATE+ Duri mentioned in the comment below “To be fair to all … The idea of the box was a team effort lead by the the AWESOME Mark Forward and Jamie George (two amazing Ogilvy folks) who planned this and blessed by our amazing clients Gina Kiroff and Joyce Kim who always drove us to think out of the box. I just delivered Thank you all for your great words … we’re still learning”

Another great PR/Business lesson: Give credit where it’s due.

"On my command, unleash Twitter"

One of the things I love about social media is people stand-up for each other. The art of “having your back” has returned. As very recent examples show:

1. The Cooks Source Revenge: Editor uses someone else’s recipe/article, writer takes exception, editor sends condescending reply, citing that all the internet tubes are “public domain” and she should charge her for using the article. UNLEASH THE GEEKALANCHE! If you Google “Cooks Source” you can see this turned into a worldwide story. Advertisers were bombarded with calls and emails to pull their support from the magazine.

2. Amazon Pedophile Guide: Somebody discovered Amazon was selling a guide to being a pedophile and thankfully the online world collectively lost their mind on them. Within 18 hours, the call to boycott Amazon was so strong, they pulled the title. Sadly, this also generated sales of the ebook before it was removed.

3. #IAmSparticus: Man gets to airport, is cheesed his flight isn’t going anywhere and tweets “Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!” And is promptly arrested. During his trial, a horde of online folks, mostly in the UK, tweet the exact thing and add “#IAmSparticus” to the end, in an act of awesomeness and solidarity.

Here’s what I love: everything is immediate and everybody is relevant. it no longer depends on press releases, contacts and a huge budget to get the world to take notice, it just has to be an awesome outrage. Us geeks have nothing better to do than to gang-up and stand-up for what’s right. We live rent-free in wicked basements and don’t have to do our own laundry (at least I wish this was still true for me).

Here’s where I take issue: We’ve lost the benefit of the doubt. I have no problem with the examples above but people now default to complaining on social media instead of going directly to the business first. I try to treat screw-ups as if they happened with my business, meaning I’d want to know to have a chance to make it right.

With my last post I could have simply tweeted that the food sucked, and walked away, but I never would have gotten it resolved and realized the chef cared about my experience.

I’ve seen people post on Facebook and Twitter about a terrible meal or a bad service experience but have never actually asked for it to be resolved, like the social media smurf unicorns would run off in the night and fix it all, due to brands fearing the social media geek-tsunami that was impending.

My mom brought UnJunior to get his haircut last week and wasn’t pleased with the attitude when she was refused service due to the time of day (20 minutes away from closing). She asked me if I could “Twitter” it. That’s when I started to sob gently. Social media should not be a megaphone of anger if we haven’t tried for a resolution. I’m guilty as the next person. So with this situation, I sent a DM to the hair place, and she explained what happened, overbooked, only stylist there had to leave to get her daughter at daycare before it closed. I could have jumped on Twitter and called them out with the old “DO YOU KNOW WHO I THINK I AM?? HAVE YOU SEEN MY KLOUT SCORE!!??”  Amazingly being human here worked and we talked about UnJunior coming in at another time.

It’s gotten so bad I’ve heard of people threatening places that if they don’t comp them rooms, meals or swag at events, they will tweet, post or give negative Yelp/TripAdvisor reviews. THESE are the people that need to be outed and have a social media beat down. THEY are the ones that make the social media sphere bad for the rest of us.

So next time you’re about to rage, make sure you give the business a chance to make it right first. If they fail to make it right, then on my command, unleash social media hell.

Have you had good/bad experience with this as a consumer or biz owner? I’d love to hear your comments below.

Like many things these days, it matters less about who created it, but the emotion/amazement that the video can evoke. That Old Spice dude showed us that and way back in the day, Where the Hell is Matt proved companies could sponsor a concept without hurting the video pass-around

Yesterday introduced us to a whole different area: An incredible video concept that was sponsored but not disclosed. Have a look at the video that I first saw mentioned on Mashable:

Simply brilliant. They even have a “making of” video that’s received over 100k views on its own.

Some people in various comments around the blogs even mentioned that Levi’s missed a great opportunity to sponsor this video, because of the delicious shot of the Levi’s bum tag at the end.

It turns out, Levi’s did sponsor the whole thing.

AdFreak decided to go to the source and ask the people who made the video.

Does this change the video impact to you? Should they have disclosed it at the end? I felt a little skeezy after I found out it was an undisclosed sponsorship. I read about it at my news source (Mashable) and passed it around on facebook and Twitter. The thing is, I would have passed the video around if at the end it said “Thanks Levi’s for making this happen” or something along those lines.

Transparency is huge nowadays, and the fact that they didn’t mention it at all concerns me. You?

What do you think? Comment below!

*UPDATE* I think what bothered me the most is Levi’s isn’t mentioned in the video, in any description, or in the “making of” video which would have been another perfect spot to say it. They left out the sponsorship on purpose through everything.

One of the funniest paraody videos, ever.