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Battelle talked about the success of Federated’s partnership with Dell on Facebook’s Graffiti Wall application in January, where there was a contest which let users illustrate what “green” meant to them. The effort was created to support Dell’s ReGeneration initiative, but it may be difficult to think of it as a campaign — as long as a campaign is defined as an outbound series of marketing messages, delivered on a set schedule, centered around a central product and theme.

There are a lot of impressive stats here: 1.1 million people voted on their favorite illustration, 7,300 people entered a submission, the contest has almost 1,300 friends, and there are currently 209 comments to the post at ReGeneration.org announcing the winners. Clearly, Dell’s ReGeneration effort supports Battelle’s contention that social media may finally make online advertising much more interesting to users than the ongoing crop of forgettable banner campaigns.

Here’s a random sample of companies using Twitter as part of their social media marketing efforts:



• MTV Music Video Awards
• Mac Rumors
• ESPN
• Carnival Cruise lines
• Intel Software
• CNN
• Delta Airlines
• Eleven Marketing

Toyota's Truck Summoner
This is a 30-second spot in the popular machinima style where a "World of Warcraft" player attacks a dragon using a Toyota Tacoma as his weapon.

An unbranded version of the commercial was posted on YouTube two days before it aired on TV by a Saatchi & Saatchi employee who worked on the campaign. Here's why it works: The video piggybacked on a well-established viral phenomenon in the gamer world, a WoW player named Leeroy Jenkins. Saatchi & Saatchi PR representative Erin Poole maintains that they did nothing to promote the video or seed it in gamer forums -- they just uploaded it to YouTube. I'd be more dubious if the geek legend that preceded it didn't have such strong viral legs.

When Del Monte Foods was considering a new breakfast treat for dogs, it sent out a note to an online community of dog owners asking them what they most wanted to feed their pets in the morning. The consensus answer was something with a bacon-and-egg taste.

The result: Last summer, Del Monte introduced its Snausages Breakfast Bites. They are flavored like bacon and eggs, and contain an extra dose of vitamins and minerals, which the dog owners said was also important to them.

The online community, called "I Love My Dog," isn't some random chat room or yet another Web site for dog enthusiasts -- the group was created by Del Monte. Its 400 members were handpicked to join the private network, which the company uses to help create products, test marketing campaigns and stir up buzz.

Checkered Flag Motor Car Company, a regional auto dealership group based in Virginia Beach, Va., launched its blog several months ago and is delighted with the feedback and sense of community that it has generated, not to mention its bolstering of Checkered's search engine ranking, said Alex Snyder, the director of e-commerce for the company. In fact, the company is in the process of redesigning its main Web site to serve as the blog.

The dealership hasn't received a complaint -- yet -- through the blog, Snyder told CRM Buyer, but if one does come through, "we will either address it in the public forum or take care of it before we post the complaint and our solution to it publicly."