Remember those MTV ads urging viewers to Rock the Vote?   You know, those ads where they got hip celebrities who could connect with the young public on screen, and urging young viewers to go out and do their civic duty?  Well now politicos are looking to connect with the younger generation in a different way, going right to heart of their audience’s preferred method of communication. So rather than turn to TV Ads, they’ve turned to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, hoping to connect with the next generation of potential voters.

Call it a sign of the times, but right now New York City Mayor, Mike Bloomberg’s campaign is urging online supporters to “tweet out the vote,” in order to draw a stronger base of supporters.

In fact Bloomberg had devoted a small portion of his mega budget to search ads promoting his Twitter account. He’s targeting Google ads to people in New York City who search for “Twitter,” enabling the campaign to automatically update their Twitter accounts to say, “I support @mikebloomberg for re-election!”

What’s more, Bloomberg’s campaign is asking voters to “donate” their Facebook status through a similar message to be posted on Election Day.  But of course with any mention of Bloomberg comes mention of his gargantuan spending habits.  In fact he was recently reported to have spent more of his own money on a campaign than any other individual in United States history in the pursuit of public office.  So this begs the question, do you need money to make a social networking campaign successful?

Let’s look at a politico in Hoboken to help answer this question.  Mayor Dawn Zimmer is operating on a shoe-string budget.  Zimmer’s campaign cannot afford to to run ads online much less buy TV and radio spots like Bloomberg.  What she can do however, is count on social media efforts, specifically Facebook and Twitter as key components of her election strategy.  Zimmer’s camp is made up of a three-person team who work to disseminate messages inexpensively, build grassroots volunteers, and neutralize misinformation.

And for both Bloomberg and Zimmer, despite the gross difference in their campaign budgets, social media seems to be working.  Like Bloomberg, Zimmer has far more followers on Twitter than her six opponents; she has close to 165 while the others each have fewer than 50. Bloomberg has more than 12,000 Twitter followers while his closest opponent, Bill Thompson, has only around 900.

While we have not yet seen if a politico’s number of Twitter followers can be correlated to a mayor’s number of votes in an election, the numbers are still worth taking a good hard look it, and so is a tool that is virtually free!  Social media is a way to get out your campaign messages and issues in real time, and communicate with a new set of voters you are trying to reach.  It’s a way to combat falsities almost the minute they happen and it’s a way for people to digest campaign information in a quick and understandable form.  What’s more, Twitter and Facebook are free, so no matter how many campaign dollars are pumped in or out of campaigns, in social media, the playing field is leveled.   Regardless if Bloomberg or Zimmer win, you can bet more and more politicians will urge to “Tweet the Vote. “

In an effort to alleviate some of the approximate 23.8 billion pounds of clothing and textiles that end up in a landfill each year, Levi Strauss & Co is making a change to their clothing tags. They hope to achieve this by adding a simple “donate to Goodwill” icon to the set of instructions, in addition to encouraging cold water washes, and line drys when possible to reduce energy usage.

Goodwill Industries International CEO & President Jim Gibbons was quoted as saying, “In addition to funding community-based services, these landfill diversion programs create job-training opportunities for more than 1.5 million people a year.”

It’s a simple effort with great effect.

In Philadelphia, we worry about the “brand” of the city. We want to come up with a clever phrase that will make the world think about, remember and revere Philadelphia.

A lot of people think a brand is the logo, or the color palette you use, but it’s really a feeling. The best brands encapsulate the feeling that a product or organization provide to the audience. It’s a feeling that begins inside the organization responsible for the product. That feeling can’t be made up. Your ad agency can’t create it out of thin air. The best brands are The Truth.

Over the years, there have been numerous efforts to brand the city and the region – some good, some bad. However, it’s fair to say that none of them have really caught the attention of the general public (at least not since they came up with City of Brotherly Love.

Like it or not, Philadelphia’s brand is defined by its history – more than anything, most of America thinks of this town as the Cradle of Liberty. This certainly isn’t a bad thing to be, but it isn’t exactly forward-thinking, either. The brand is also defined by our sports teams, their traditional lack of success, and the way we react to that lack of success.

But now comes a branding opportunity on the Big Stage. Phillies. Yankees. The World Series. Last year, when the Phillies beat Tampa Bay for the Championship, most of America yawned. But now, everyone will be watching because the Yankees are, well, the Yankees.

The Fightin’s are definitely underdogs, but these Phillies ain’t no Rocky Balboa upstart. They’re damn good.

Philadelphians are head over heels in love with the Phils, not just because they win, but because of the way they play and the way they stick together. Because of the way Charlie hung with Lidge. Because of the way the players live in and embrace the city.

Everybody in the area has an electric feeling about what the Phillies are doing, best captured in the great Phillies mash up that glorified Jimmy Rollins’ clutch NLCS Game 4 winner.

So the stage is huge. The opposition is mighty. The world is watching. When America tunes in, Philadelphia will look beautiful. Citizens Bank Park will be electric. People out there will see what’s going on here.

Of course, this is just the opportunity. To take advantage of the opportunity, the Phillies need to beat the Yankees. They need to win.

If they can do that, then Philadelphia can claim a new brand: Champions.

Because the best brands tell the truth.

“We believe that the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better is by making it fun to do. We call it The Fun Theory.”

This statement is the impetus for a clever viral marketing campaign from Volkswagen launched last week that has already yielded more than 3 million impressions online. The lead video, promoted via TheFunTheory.com and posted on YouTube, asks the question: “Can we get more people to choose the stairs by making it fun to do?” In the video, shown below, workers transform a subway staircase into a piano that plays musical notes when you walk on them. The result: 66% more people than normal chose the stairs over the escalator. Other examples include “The World’s Deepest Bin” and the “Bottle Bank Arcade Machine.”

Click here to see the video.

Kudos to VW for a job well done. The only element that’s still not altogether clear, however, is how the campaign ultimately ties back to Volkswagen. Sure the VW logo is subtly on the campaign website and at the end of each video, generating millions of impressions. But what’s the message – that VW cars are fun to drive? What’s the behavior they’re trying to change – stop driving your clunker and trade it in for a VW? Upon some further digging, it turns out that VW is rolling out new Diesel-based cars, which they are positioning as more environmentally-friendly.  Hence, the recycling, walking, and trash disposal themes of the videos.

For the average consumer, this campaign falls a little short. The behavior change that would have the biggest impact on the environment could be reducing our reliance on cars in favor of walking, biking, and public transportation. Now if only there was a way to make that fun.

A story from this week’s Ad Age print version (not sure why they still have one, but that’s besides the point) entitled “Why It’s Time to Do Away With the Brand Manager” discusses a new report from Forrester coming out next week that recommends companies change the title “brand manager” to “brand advocate.”  This is in light of the way that brands are must change in response to the “onset of social media.”

Among the recommended responsibilities for this job title:

• Ensuring what local managers do conforms with the brand equity and strategy
• Creating on-the-fly budgets and media plans that adapt quickly as conditions change
• Collecting “consumer intelligence,” previously known as market research and analytics
• Developing “predictive modeling” instead of historical marketing-mix models to target spending

All of this makes sense, and companies like P&G and Unilever say they’re already doing much of it.

The bigger issue here for marketers is not the operations, but the obsession, that will characterize great brand management and advocacy for companies.  The “brand manager” role is now a 24/7 responsibility that should touch every part of the manager’s life.  Social and digital media that make that a reality…and companies should recognize it.

The great brand managers – the ones that live their brand values, understand what drives their customers, and love their brand with all its benefits and downfalls – will be the ones that ultimately have the biggest impact on ROI.

The challenge in this new marketing world is for corporations to understand this and to create an infrastructure that supports it.  The new brand manager requires a different way of working – different hours, different tools, different rules and different measurement.  That will be the challenge of the next 5-10 years, and the companies that do it well will be the ones that will ultimately determine best practices in marketing in the 21^st century.

In the days where anyone can be a celebrity, brand managers have the ability to become leaders, influencers and even icons like they never had before.  Welcome the Brand Madvocate.