Friday Wrap-up

Another week has gone by, and here we are again to present to you our Friday Wrap-up where we share with you interesting developments and articles in the world of social media. 

1. Cisco attempts to copy the Old Spice campaign
Seeing the successes Old Spice had as of late, Cisco Systems has created a similar campaign based on “Ted from accounting”. As you can see by the following response video, it is exactly the same format as the Old Spice one. Ted is in the washroom responding to Twitter comments with a towel around his waist. So far, critiques have pegged it as a failure which I agree to a certain extent. It is often good to add personality to a brand, and you can see that is what Cisco is trying to do with these lighthearted response videos. But because they are relying on the exact same formula as Old Spice, people will immediately make comparisons between the two. And when you make that comparison, it is apparent that the level of humor cannot stand up to the Old Spice campaign. They are also lacking in video views (which we shouldn’t put too much emphasis on since B2B client base is usually much smaller than B2C). 

But before we even condemn Cisco on their efforts, we need to understand what purpose this campaign served. Were they really trying to raise brand awareness like the Old Spice campaign? Or were they trying to improve sales of their products and services? Perhaps it could just be a small scale project they initiated as a treat to their B2B partners and clients. Check out the campaign yourself and tell us what your thoughts are. 

2. Levi’s viral/sponsored YouTube video 

The following 2 min video- “Guy Walks Across America” -surfaced on YouTube about two weeks ago. It is already closing in on the 1.5 million view mark and it has more than 3000 comments. It was apparent to Ashleigh and I this had something to do with Levi’s. However, if you read some of the comments, you would be surprised by how many people miss the Levi’s connection. They think that it is a coincidence that “Mike” was wearing a pair of 501′s throughout the whole video. Ad Freak clarifies that Levi’s in fact did sponsor the making of this video. But it is not exactly a video the jeans company created as a viral marketing tool. Either way, this video created some buzz which got Levi’s some great brand exposure. 

3. Satachi & Satachi L.A. hired copywriter, Jonathan Pelleg (@Peglegington), because of the following “insightful” tweet. I know creativity is important these days, but is this tweet really worth a $70, 000 job? 

4. For those who use Google Earth on a regular basis, you would have noticed the new weather effects that come with version 5.2. Users can now see weather effects such as snow and rain when they enable the clouds layer. This is a neat feature for those who are planning on going on vacaction, or if they want to check in with where their relatives are living.

Well that’s all we have for you this Friday. Once again, please share with us any interesting social media articles or developments. For those in Canada, have a great long weekend, and see you next week!