Social Soda

Over the years, both Pepsi and CocaCola have held our hands through childhood, kept us awake during long days at the office, been present in everyday life and are always a necessity for celebrations and parties, acting as the perfect mate for our favorite spirits. Pepsi and CocaCola have been associated with athletes, celebrities and many behaviors to sell their products and create a personal 'feel' to the brands. They have earned much success by penetrating cultures and this continues as this generation transforms into a global culture spanning the web.

Coca Cola led the digital excursion with their viral movies on Youtube, placing vending machines on college campuses and filming the machines handing out 'pieces of happiness'. CocaCola aims to associate their brand with happiness and reel in their digital consumers with the curiosity of, "Where will Happiness Strike Next?" Brilliant, just brilliant. Who doesn't want a piece of happiness?


...but has the arch enemy Pepsi topped it?
Although the CocaCola viral campaign enticed the internet junkies, Pepsi has now taken this idea to a completely different level by reaching people digitally without requiring them to have a computer. Pepsi hopes to reach the top of the "Social Soda" market with their new social vending machines by providing an interactive experience while purchasing a Pepsi product and also giving consumers the ability to socially interact with their friends through the machine. Anyone can purchase a Pepsi and send it to their friend via phone or e-mail and even record a short video to share online or with a specific friend.


Ok, so maybe Pepsi is following the CocaCola train as they have been trailing behind in the last few years but the implementation is so avantgarde! Pepsi describes it as the 'next logical step' which may be true, but the way they are practically creating a real-life digital exchange is genius! Everyone wants interactivity and if someone can walk up to a vending machine and get their fix, they will. I would be inclined to buy a Pepsi just to be able to send one to a friend in such a cool way! As these vending machines will be placed all over the world, I could send Pepsi overseas!

Pepsi and CocaCola continue to surprise consumers with their ability to reach cultures with blankets covering the entire worldwide market. Will CocaCola come up with something even more social? Can they top it? I guess we have to wait to find out. For now, join the Pepsi train, "Be Social" and send me one, please. :)

10 Tips to get your Facebook page banned by Facebook

The social web and its usage culture is still on the minus one level in Hungary, both on users’ and marketers’ side. This means on the one hand, that we are just starting to get hooked on social gaming, we don’t know how to use our privacy settings, we are not feeling harrassed by the spams we get through social media platforms, we are still learning the technical background of this phenomena called the social web.

On the other hand however marketers, and agencies are also in acclimatization phase, trying to understand the strategic and tactical usage and implementation of social media in our everyday life. This is a natural evolution, and both sides are growing together, as expectations change, marketers and brands will also change their methods. It is however outrageous, how some people calling themselves experts, use social media ignoring rules that can endanger their clients’, (both SME’s and multinationals) digital strategy and their national reputation (if not international).

Facebook has a detailed regulation called „Promotions Guidelines” describing the way marketers should administer a contest on Facebook.

„A "contest" or "competition" is a promotion that includes a prize and a winner determined on the basis of skill (i.e., through judging based on specific criteria).”

These guidelines make it clear, that a promotion should in any case be administrated through an application, not through the Facebook platform.

What does this mean?

You should never use likes, tagging, posting on your wall as a tool to give any prizes to your fans.

What’s the logic behind it?

There is a very basic explanation to understand why Facebook drew the line so sharp. A social media platfrom present all over the world allowing any marketers to create fan pages, branded content on its platform (for free!), has no capacity of monitoring all the contests and comeptitions one might create. This also means, Facebook is not able of checking the rules and methods one uses to give prizes or select winners. So if a fan or anyone questions the runoff of a contest, Facebook doesn’t want to be questioned in any ways. That is why Facebook emphasizes the usage of a third party application, so the developer company and the marketer can be made responsible for any abuses during the contest process.

But everyone is doing it!- you might say.

That is right, most of the marketers don’t take this in consideration, although it can even lead to your page being banned from Facebook. For example, if a disappointed fan, who didn’t get to win on your contest just clicks on „Report this page” button, you might even be banned from any present and future usage of the platform. So if you don’t mind losing thousands of fans, then the next examples are for you:

Here are 10 examples to make sure your page will be banned

1. User uploading a photo or video to the page’s wall and earning the most “Likes” to win a prize

This is the most common method of conducting Facebook promotions. It violates the promotional guideline “ You will not condition entry to the promotion upon taking any other action [other than liking the page] on Facebook, for example, liking a status update or photo, commenting on a Wall, or uploading a photo”.

2. Downloading a photo from your page, and making it the profile picture to win a prize

Violates the same guideline as above.

3. Uploading a photo to your profile and tagging as many as friends to win a prize

Same problem.

4. Using Facebook as the “sole method” of announcing the winners of a contest/prize draw.

Facebook promotions guidelines state “you cannot notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles or Pages.” Facebook allows you to collect the email address, postal address of the participants of a promotion and notifying them through such communications. You can write a wall post on your page to announce that the winners were selected and informed, and invite them to check their inbox to see if they are winner or not. However, you cannot post the names of the winners on your Facebook page and make that the sole communication to announce the winners.

5. Using Facebook comments as a tool to collect entries into a promotion, prize draw or a sweepstake

You cannot use Facebook’s standard features to collect entries for such prize draws or sweepstakes.

6. Giving points for users to collecting likes for a picture created through a third party application and rewarding winners based on the points earned.

This is a tricky one. Many people believe, using a third party application will cover you from all the Facebook promotions guidelines. However, if you use your application to encourage people to use Facebook standard features, in order to increase your chances of winning; then that will again violate the guidelines.

7. Conducting raffle draws for users who “like” your page

I’ve seen certain brands conduct raffle draws “One lucky winner will win XYZ when we reach 10,000 likes on this page”.

8. Tag yourself in this photo and win tickets.

This method is well known for IKEA’s great promotion in 2009, when people could get the furniture from the uploaded showroom that they tagged themselves on. Since that time facebook promotion guidelines changed a lot.

9. Mention our page in your status to win a prize

It’s not the most common way pages promote themselves, but still not legal.

10. Award the most active member of your page

Some pages select monthly or weekly the most active fan, which is obviously quiet a subjective category, and of course is totally against the promotion guidelines.

A 'Winning' Brand

The recent hype that surrounds Charlie Sheen is being covered by every media source imaginable. I feel it almost cliché to write about it but because the brand development is so forward thinking and opportunistic, I can’t help myself.

For those of you who don’t know, let’s quickly follow the timeline of this now infamous film and television actor. Prior to the last six months, Sheen lived a relatively normal life for a Hollywood celebrity and son of famous, Martin Sheen. He married three times, was often spotted spending time with famous porn stars and occasionally visited a rehab facility to ‘clean’ himself of all types of drugs and alcohol. This was enough to keep tabloid interest but until recently the Charlie Sheen brand only existed in theory.

Fast-forward to the ‘Charlie Sheen breakdown’ in February of this year when CBS stopped production on the number one television show in America, “Two and a Half Men,” of which Sheen was the star. This was the focal point of this whole Sheen fairy tale as he and his genius PR team then decided to start a revolution of ‘epic proportions’.

CBS claims to have put the show on hiatus due to Sheen’s rehabilitation plans. The CBS statement was given immediately following Sheen being rushed to the hospital for abdominal pains in the middle of the night after allegedly partying for two days straight. As Sheen did not plan to enter a rehabilitation facility, there was an adverse reaction from the star. Naturally, Sheen wanted production to resume as he was being paid $1.25 million for EACH episode. Looking back, that number is nothing compared to the money his winning brand is making now.

The revolution began with Sheen getting his own opinion on the issue out to the world. He gave live interviews to every news source imaginable, spitting his ‘genius’ all over American television and the net. As a trained comedian Sheen naturally developed some pretty catchy material through these interviews. High on himself but agreeing to take drug tests to prove his sobriety, Sheen spoke of his importance, god-like methods and described himself over and over as ‘winning’. Who knew this word would turn to gold as it spurred out of Charlie Sheen’s mouth?

The digital world paved the road for Sheen’s take over. He began recording his own video series with his home web-cam, picturing him doing ‘what winners do’- hanging out at home with pretty young girls on his lap, smoking cigarettes and talking about how awesome he is. #CharlieSheen was at the top of the trend list on Twitter for days straight and #winning and #tigersblood, another ‘Sheenism’, continue to reach the top of the list every day, months after the phrases were first coined by Sheen. The actor holds a world record now as the fastest person ever to get one million Twitter followers. His time, 25 hours and 17 minutes.

You can also find Sheen all over Facebook. Statuses are constantly mentioning ‘winning’ and 'drinking tiger’s blood'. Several users are posting, “Charlie Sheen for president” and statuses such as, “Charlie Sheen is a warlock”. The Charlie Sheen fan page has jumped 300,000 since his first web series and the actor is posting links to his new money-making websites daily.

Sheenisms are common among young people these days and I can admit that at times I have announced that I’m ‘winning’ to my colleagues.

The Winning! Facebook fan page, picturing Charlie Sheen in the place of Barack Obama in the famous presidential campaign poster image, has constant traffic. Winning! Fans have jumped to over 20,000 in just a month, since the group was first established.

Although Sheen may have been high on drugs, himself, or whatever, this personal branding was no accident. On one of Sheen’s first disturbing yet revealing web series episodes, the viewer can actually listen to a conversation between Sheen and his publicist, discussing how to sell Sheen’s ‘winning’ attitude and warlock-type powers. This includes his publicist complementing Sheen's Twitter and Facebook status updates, describing them as “brilliant”.


You can now visit the website, winning.com where Sheen merchandise can be purchased and you can find the latest news on Sheen, his goddesses and team of supporters. As part of this phenomenon, Sheen is now speaking all over America and Canada in a “My Violent Torpedo of Truth / Defeat is Not an Option” tour. One can only imagine what these speaking engagements will include but they are selling out by the minute. Everyone wants to get a piece of Sheen’s magic.

To top it all off and show us that he really is a warlock, Sheen is donating one dollar from each ticket sold on tour to the Red Cross Japanese Earthquake Relief Fund. This brand even practices CSR!

I am jumping on the Charlie Sheen train with this article, but how avant-garde to make lemonade out of a lemon of a public relations accident! After this incident, the Charlie Sheen brand will live on forever with ‘winning’ and ‘tiger’s blood’ making millions of dollars long after any television show airs on American television.

I agree with you, Charlie Sheen, you are winning and your team of genius brand managers, public relations professionals and the digital geeks behind computer screens in your Hollywood mansion should get all the credit, or at least a piece of your millions.

HunKi Revolution- Hungarian gastronomy rising despite financial crisis

An obvious consequence of the global financial crisis is a decrease in the number of customers in sectors related to consumption. It is the same with restaurants as during the last few years, the number of people who are able to spend has decreased, parallel to the rise in the prices of ingredients. In the Fall of 2008 it was a very bad situation for the people in the restaurant business and at that time nobody knew that the economic depression would persist for more than 2 years.

Perhaps in countries where eating out is more general and part of everyday life, the situation didn’t seem that bad. Restaurant owners might have thought that among people who eat out regularly, only a minority would change their habits and most of them would keep coming. However in cities like Budapest, where the culture of gastronomy just started to plant its seeds in the beginning of the crisis, nobody could see such a bright future.

A few years ago problem facing the Hungarian gastro-life was quite simple for these choosy consumers: there were very few good and well-known places and the ones that existed were strictly located in the capital. Many restaurants offered average menus, labeling themselves as a traditional, real Hungarian restaurant but only using frozen vegetables, 2nd class meat and mere salt and pepper as spices. For a long time tourists asking for a typical local dish were served “Gulyás soup” and “Bélszín á la Budapest”, as if there were no characteristic local spices or good quality ingredients.

Despite these circumstances, the gastro-bomb exploded in the last 2 years in Hungary, mainly in the capital. The first big step toward reaching the international scene was the first Michelin star award of the restaurant Costes. The motto of the establishment is quite suggestive: without compromises. This represents the key elements of success in this “gastro – revolution,” as even though the place opened in the worst period of the financial crisis, it offered options with the highest quality ingredients. The mentality of the owner makes Costes very avant-garde because he is not only daring but represents the leading quality: creativity.

Fortunately Costes is not the only knight of this mission as many good establishments opened –and not many closed – in the past 1 or 2 years such as Mák Bisztró or Bock Bisztró. Both places are determined to use as many Hungarian ingredients as they can and the mission of the chefs are very similar as well: to redefine Hungarian cuisine.

Another restaurant joined the Hungarian kitchen revolution: Onyx, a rather posh restaurant in the heart of the city, recently awarded with a Michelin star. Onyx is another piece of evidence and Avantgarde truth that the quality is worth the investment.

Hungarian Joins Zuckerberg's Family

Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua, David Beckham’s bulldog, Rihanna’s maltipoo and many other celebrity pets are history now that Mark Zuckerberg introduced Beast, his puppy to the online communitiy, meaning the whole wide world.

The story is as simple as this: Mark and his girlfriend Priscilla decided to expand the family with the dog of their choice – a Hungarian Puli. The move was welcomed by the network because the news spread at light speed in the international and Hungarian media.

If we assume this is a cute story, we are most likely wrong. Zuckerberg was Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 2010, and according to dailymail.co.uk, the Puli puppy could easily become the most famous dog in the world. How it is going to look in the long term? Pretty intense. Zuckerberg has already created a Facebook fan page for his dog called ’Beast’. Since yesterday the new Public Figure was liked by almost 25 thousand people. The numbers are impressive, if we compare them with the fans of Bo, The First Dog who did not reach even 2 thousand fans. The secret lies - wait a sec, the number just rise above 25 thousand this minute – in the social media essense: to keep the public informed in a causual way. Do not show any less or any more than you want them know, but keep them entertained. Bo likes a public option for health care, while Beast has just announced that the youngest billionaire on earth cleaned his dump...and 1500 people liked the post.

Beast’s profile is definitely going to hit it off and attract even more attention. Interestingly, when you’re creating a Facebook Page there’s no option to choose an animal or pet category. Zuckerberg simply cliked on “Create a Page for a celebrity, band or business” then “Artist, Band or Public Figure” and then chose “Public Figure” status to Beast, thus putting him on the Facebook map. I guess he might as well have chosen a „Brand or Product”, since Puli is soon going to be one of the most wanted breeds.

Will we soon have Puli application? Will it improve the image of Hungary? Will the number of four-legged Facebook users increase dramatically this year? Is there a new social network for pets in Zuckerberg's mind? All of these are possible in the growing and ever so inventive facebook world.

As a pet lover, I would say everyone should have dogs. As a Hungarian who has had Pulis for the last 20 years, I would say I am touched and filled with joy. As a PR person I say, nice job Mark. Smart way to make yourself more likeable. I did push the like buttom for Beast’s page and in a way, for him. Now, as I finish writing Beast has over 26 thousand fans.

Love Makes the Social Media World Go 'Round

We buy gifts on social coupon sites, we order flowers online, we get to know restaurant specials Valentine’s day offers through Foursquare, and send Facebook e-cards to our beloved. This is an ironic video about Valentine’s day and social media, that underlines how the web 2.0 changed our our way of celebrating love.
Since brands have gone social, they also want to be present for their community for the most personal festivities. This includes engaging them in online debates to create buzz, helping them express their feelings on social platforms and of course selling their products directly through the actual promotion, or indirectly by raising brand loyalty. To completely capture the attention of the community, a brand must find a captivating idea coherent with the communication strategy, and then make it social. Here are five great examples of brands’ special Valentine’s day social campaigns that engage the community .

1. Tommy Hilfiger developed a show the love application on its website, where the user can choose between pesronalized love declarations like animations, or special Valentine’s day offers for couples from their underwear line.


2. Mattel made a huge campaign around Barbie and Ken beginning with a viral video and a microsite abd integrated with Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare for both characters. The famous ficticious couple that split up on 2004 Valentine’s day, asks its fan since 2011 to decide whether they should get back together.



On Barbie’s Facebook page, users can vote whether she should take Ken back or not, while on Ken’s Facebook profile, you can compete to become the genuine Ken, the great American boyfriend. On Twitter, both characters are actively tweeting and on Foursquare you can follow where they last checked-in.

3. Victoria's Secret has racy e-Valentines that urge folks to e-mail or send via a social network. Senders select from sexy pictures and expressions that Victoria's Secret posts on its website. Women have the option of including a photo of the Victoria's Secret gift they want.

4. Rovio Mobile created a special Valentine’s Day version of its best-selling smartphone game, Angry birds. The popular application also had Christmas-themed version, that will soon be released as a cartoon tv show. To promote the new app, Rovio Mobile developed a Facebook app where users can send special e-cards to their online network.

5. To promote its new comedy Mad Love, CBS, through Feb. 14, has a virtual gift app on the show's Facebook page that lets users send virtual hearts emblazoned with this: MAD 4U.

Fighting Together for #Egypt #Freedom

In April 2008 a student "tweeted" his way out of an Egyptian jail. James Karl Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley was arrested during his visit in Mahalla, Egypt.

He and his translator were both participating in an anti-government protest when the police arrested them and took them to the police station. Buck, being a tech-savy guy took his chances and used his cell phone to send a message to Twitter with only one short word, "arrested". After this message he managed to send new updates every few hours.

His only luck was that somehow the police let him keep his phone. Among many others one Cairo-based blogger from UC Berkeley started to write posts on his blog based on Bucks' tweets to get the information to the public regarding his whereabouts. One thing led to the other and it all ended up with Bucks' university hiring a lawyer and getting him out of jail.

Let's mention what Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said about this story.

"James' case is particularly compelling to us because of the simplicity of his message -one word, 'arrested' - and the speed with which the whole scene played out. It highlights the simplicity and value of a real-time communication network that follows you wherever you go."

It all happened back in 2008 when Twitter was only 2 years old, this year being a real breakthrough for the communication channel. This story is much bigger than only one man, one case or one startup and our habits in communication changed with the rise of what we call "social media."

Now let's jump to present-day. I bet you have all heard about the unrest in Egypt. The spheres of the net are full of rich and even exotic content like this interview with one of the most vigorous tweeters from Tahrir Square. It was 7 PM on February 2nd, 2011 and according to BBC's Live Coverage:

"The BBC's Paul Adams in Cairo describes the atmosphere in Tahrir Square as a bit like a rock concert before the band comes on stage."

We all remember how It's started...the biggest moment of the crisis for me and for the people who care about Cairo happened when we heard about the Egyptian government blocking social media sites, mobile phone networks and finally cutting off internet service. It's not that easy to freeze all communication channels nowadays because when it comes to technology you can always find another way... and they did.

Just imagine being stuck at Tahrir Square without any tools for communication or getting your message to the world. Sometimes It's hard to imagine how we could live without cell phones, Facebook or even internet. Now we all have witnessed the search giant Google siding with Twitter to provide free service to the protesters of Egypt. It was "an online voicemail service, providing a link to each message, sent out on Twitter with the "#egypt" hashtag."

Such stories prove that channels such as Twitter aren't just meaningless tools for overly-bored people and when it comes to real needs they can be far more than useful. We're facing each day of new applications, platforms, and startups rising from nothing and they all want our attention and time. You can hate them or love them but what Google and Twitter did for protesters in Egypt is something I call "the real power of social media".

We all must heed this: social media consist of tools that benefit people using technology and if anyone tries to restrict their freedom of speech they will fight back using these tools. You can't cut people from any communication form anymore no matter how hard you try.

[UPDATE] 11. 02. 2012. Mubarak has resigned.