Tesco Mobile, UK’s largest mobile virtual network operator, has taken a different approach to addressing people’s concerns on Twitter. In previous emarketing classes we discussed social media triage and the best ways to go about answering peoples comments on social media platforms.

One of the most important things we addressed was that when you reply to a disgruntled customer, you must do so in the most respectful way possible because other customers will be able to read your reply. However, this wasn’t the case for Tesco Mobile. Instead of kindly referring people to customer service, Tesco Mobile tweeted back snarky, hilarious remarks to customers that were complaining about their services on Twitter.

For example, @JayFeliipe tweeted “Immediate turnoff if a girl’s mobile network is tesco mobile,” Tesco replied: “Are you really in a position to be turning girls away?”. Instead of being upset with Tesco’s snide comment, bystanders loved it and retweeted it more than 6,000 times! In order to make up for humiliating @JayFeliipe online, Tesco sent him a gift for being so good-natured about getting publicly burned. Here are few more witty Tesco comebacks.

I think it is refreshing for a company to take a risk and challenge the norms of Twitter etiquette. This could have gone horribly wrong but luckily customers responded in a very positive way and now Tesco’s Twitter account is getting more activity than ever before.

Last Friday Google announced their latest advertising technique that has privacy-worshipers everywhere completely outraged. Similar to Facebook, Google advertisements will now feature users’ profile pictures from Google+ next to brands that they recommend. For instance, if you are searching for a sushi restaurant on Google, your friend’s profile picture might appear next to an advertisement for a sushi restaurant near you.

In an effort to stay competitive with Facebook, Google has been very quick to copy their advertising features. First they created “+1”, which is similar to the “like” button on Facebook, and now they are including users’ pictures just like Facebook did with “Sponsored Stories”. Google should be wary of this advertising technique because Facebook has been sued over “Sponsored Stories”, which put friends’ profile pictures next to brands that they liked on social networks.

Although you can opt-out of including your picture on Google+, people are very upset by this privacy violation. Only one day after Google+ made the announcement, people started protesting by changing their profile pictures to a picture of Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. I’m interested to see if people are going to retaliate further by posting even more obscene profile pictures or if Google is going to figure out a method, such as bribery, to encourage users to make recommendations and share their profile pictures. Stay tuned.

Click here to read more about this topic.

Earlier this year Volvo came out with their new FMX Truck and they have taken a very extreme, dangerous approach to promoting it. A series of videos have been released that demonstrate the truck’s key features in a very unconventional way. For instance, Claes Nilsson, Volvo’s president, stood on top of a suspended FMX Volvo Truck in order to demonstrate the robustness of the truck’s towing hook. Not only that, they also had a 175 g hamster named Charlie, steer the 15 tonne Volvo FMX to show how easy the dynamic steering wheel is. You have to see it to believe it!

Volvo’s latest video came out today, where the agency Forsman & Bodenfors created an amazing stunt that incorporated a smaller-scale version of Spain’s Running with the Bulls. The FMX truck was painted red and raced through the Spanish town of Ciudad Rodrigo followed by a large herd of angry bulls. The video was directed by the Oscar nominated director, Henry Alex Rubin, and it took 28 cameras to capture the video. I can only imagine what they are going to come up with next.

Molson Canadian’s “I. Am. Canadian” campaign has brought laughter and tears to audiences with their extremely empowering commercials that strike pride in the hearts of Canadians. Instead of creating a commercial to relaunch the “I. Am. Canadian” campaign that had phased out in 2004, they engaged Molson fans around the world by putting bright red beer fridges in random European locations such as Canterbury, White Cliffs of Dover, Northern France, Cassel, London, Brussels, and Rural Belgium. The fridges are stocked full of Molson beer and can only be opened by scanning a Canadian passport. When I first heard about the campaign I was a little skeptical but after watching their promotional YouTube video I quickly changed my mind. This campaign is very creative and it is a great way to increase Canadian pride, which is what Molson Canadian’s brand is all about.

This campaign was launched by the company ReThink, which is located in Toronto. So why did they choose Europe? “Sometimes, you’re most proud of where you’re from when you’re away from home,” stated ReThink. At first I thought that by having the fridges located in Europe it exclude other nationalities and Molson would be criticized for it. However, you can see in the video that the fridges didn’t necessarily exclude anyone, it brought different nationalities together over sharing beer with a proud Canadian.

“Hey everyone, come see how good I look!” Will Farrell is at it again, playing everyone’s favorite character from the movie “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy”. The film made $28.4 million in its opening weekend, and $90.6 million worldwide in its total theatrical run so it’s no surprise that there would be a sequel to follow. This December, “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” will be in theaters and Will Farrell lovers everywhere (including myself) are counting down the days until its release.

There have been many promotional activities leading up the new movies release. Two weeks ago, many Canadian movie theaters including Vancouver’s Scotia Bank Theatre showed reruns of the first Anchorman movie for only $6. With all the publicity the sequel is getting, it was only a matter of time until a company, such as Chrysler, capitalized on the opportunity to cross promote with the movie. A series of commercials were launched earlier today that were hilarious, silly and had very little to do with the car itself. Kudos to Chrysler for taking a chance and recognizing the hype around Anchorman’s release and successfully attaching itself to the movie. This isn’t their usual commercial where the vehicle’s rugged, powerful features are the main focus. Instead they put the main focus on Ron Burgundy and subtly mentioned the vehicles MPGs, horse power and roomy glove compartment in a comical way so that viewers were more in engaged and had a fun experience watching the video.

Click Here to view the commercials!

You stay classy Vancouver.