The Digital Week

Welcome to Porter Novelli’s weekly digital news post.

Wowee, what a week! Being a New York Jets fan, AFC Championship heartbreak caused me to take my eye off the Superbowl on Sunday, but the big brands certainly didn’t follow suit. During New Orleans’s Superbowl XLIV victory over Indianapolis, advertising was almost as big a story as Drew Brees’ and the Saints. In fact, almost all of my reading around social media since the weekend has touched upon the Superbowl somewhere along the line – hardly surprising given the oft-cited estimated cost of $3 million for 30 seconds of airtime.

Coca-Cola went for a partnership with The Simpsons to create this cute ad, while search giant Google opted to screen an established Google favourite - Parisian Love – during the third quarter, a rare TV advertising moment for the company. At almost a minute long, we can assume it cost a few bob.

That’s probably why CEO Eric Schmidt dropped a big fat hint the day before the big event. And there’s a little more to it than just a big brand paying big bucks for Superbowl spots, as Stephen Waddington has been discussing: Google will be watching very closely at how search stats might have been affected by the screening.

#vodafonefail

Oops. Look after your Twitter passwords out there! Vodafone UK fell foul of a presumably disgruntled employee’s digi-wrath last week when its 8,660-odd followers on Twitter were treated to a mind-meltingly inappropriate update from the official profile: “Is fed up of dirty homo’s and is going after beaver.”

Vodafone’s response was something to behold as it began apologising individually to its followers. A full apology followed, as did the suspension of the member of staff involved (no ‘suspicion’ involved there, which suggests they know who it was – probably an intern, it always is).

This won’t damage Vodafone’s sales, nor will it do long-term reputational harm – but it will be remembered. This kind of thing can (and most likely will) happen to every big brand at sometime or another, so it’s always best not to mock or judge. Next time it might be you charged with tidying up the mess.

More deals for Foursquare

Foursquare, the location-based competitive social networking wotsit, recently signed up to a deal with Bravo TV, and a handful more partnerships are reportedly on the way (or, indeed, already here).

The Foursquare ‘game’ is built around the collection of location-specific badges and the leaving and following of tips and to-dos for other members to follow. Mashable covers the biggest of these deals and they show the real marketing potential of Foursquare. In a sense, it’s simply a matter of skinning the game and dropping in relevant locations.

Warner Bros. (‘Valentine’s Day’) and HBO (‘How to Make it in America’) are both using Foursquare locations and badges to promote their film/show. Foursquare has loaded their content – romantic places for Warner,  show-related ‘tips’ for HBO – and users will be rewarded with badges for going there, or doing the to-dos. It’s clever in its simplicity.

Perhaps more interestingly, Foursquare is also working with the restaurant review site Zagat. Yelp recently moved right into Foursquare’s hood by adding the check-in function which characterised the young pretender’s attraction, and Mashable rightly interprets the addition of Zagat reviews to Foursquare check-ins as a hefty revenge shot.

I’m still not convinced that Foursquare isn’t just the first dip into location ‘games’ and will soon be forgotten, but these deals go some way to proving its worth as a technology if not its execution. However, I can’t help but feel these campaigns are aimed squarely (pardon the pun) at heavy social media users and early adopters and in reality have relatively limited reach.

Finally…

A discussion on which to keep a beady eye: Darika Ahrens is in the midst of a cracking series covering how PR should strengthen its lot online, and our very own Kerry Gaffney and northern-type Jed Hallam have both formulated responses.

The bulk of the conversation so far has centred on the pros and cons of blogger outreach, and some fascinating points have been raised. Keep an eye on Darika’s writing and the inevitable responses over the next few days, it’s sure to be a cracking read.