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The Ethics of Online Reviews

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This article started as an investigation into a company providing services to the automotive industry,Review Boost. I didn’t know much about the company, only that it had received some negative press and accusations of gaming online reviews. In fact, it even had a local San Antonio television station, KSAT, run a news segment regarding a dealership who used their services. There have been blog articles written questioning the authenticity of the reviews as well as articles written in both Automotive News and F&I Magazine.

The importance of reputation management has been increasingly on dealers’ minds, being, from the dealers I spoke with and interviewed for DrivingSalesTV, the hot topic of this year’s NADA convention. The FTC is cracking down on companies engaging in posting misleading reviews, legislators are pushing for stricter laws regarding this practice, legal advisors are reporting that a company exposes themselves tolegal risks by engaging in this act, and a California law went into effect Jan 1, 2011 making it a criminal activity. Add to these variables the fact that search engines are starting to increase the importance of online reviews in their algorithms and incorporating them into search results, naturally, when they popped up on my radar again after partnering up with an industry vendor, I was curious as to why the partnership happened and I started asking questions and doing some homework.

[Edit: After sharing my article with representatives from Review Boost, they informed me that they decided not to move forward with the partnership I referred to above.]

I spoke with William, the owner of Review Boost, at length. We spoke for upwards of an hour and he walked me through what his company does. First, to be clear, they deny all accusations of gaming reviews and/or writing the reviews themselves. William was very pleasant, if understandably nervous during our conversation but, in my opinion, sincerely wanted to clear the air regarding what his company does. Without revealing too many of his proprietary practices, which he shared with me, I didn’t get the impression that he is doing anything wrong at all. Now, given that there were already a ton of articles investigating and breaking down why other people feel that they are, I didn’t feel the need to rehash what others have already done and I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.

See, William isn’t in the car business. Review Boost began assisting local businesses like dentists, doctors, and such. It ended up that dealers account for about 30% of their current client base but this wasn’t by design. The crux of their strategy, which is what surprised me the most, is that they administer a website called myreviewboost.com in which they post reviews collected from clients of their dealers. These reviews are then syndicated across about 40 online review directories through partnerships with them. I was surprised that such a syndication was allowed but I did some investigating and, not only is it allowed, but it is encouraged. Judysbook.com, in example, promotes review sharing partnerships openly.

I reached out to Google themselves. The fact that they syndicate reviews is telling about their policies but they did point out within their Review Posting Guidelines that conflicts of interest, including misrepresentation and/or posting reviews on behalf of others is not allowed.

In essence, William’s company is soliciting reviews only from the customers which the dealer provides contact information to them. They do not edit the reviews – whether positive or negative. They will moderate a negative review, if received, allowing the dealer a chance to resolve the problem and then, when the dealer reports that the problem has been resolved, resurveying the customer to get an updated review. In my mind, this absolutely explains why almost every review is positive.

If I were a dealer who needed to increase my online reputation, I certainly wouldn’t hand over an unhappy customer’s e-mail address to be reviewed. In fact, I know many dealers that will occassionally RDR cars to the factory with incorrect information to avoid a potential negative CSI survey and/or “buy” surveys from their customers through offers of free oil changes or something to encourage their consumers to return the surveys to THEM and not mail them in to their OEM unscreened.

William’s strategy made perfect sense to me and the syndication accounted for the reason for the same review appearing on multiple sites. So while this practice may be viewed by some to be unethical, it’s not illegal or in violation of these directories terms of service. They’re simply taking advantage of existing online directories willingness to crawl their review site to maximize the SEO value of each review they collected from their client’s customers.

So, is this article about Review Boost? No. The real story is what is ethical in the online reputation management arena.

I’m sure that we would all agree that posting fake reviews is unethical and, in some cases, illegal.

What about these practices?

  • Posting REAL reviews, verbatim, by your customers on their behalf with their permission.
  • Screening WHO gets reviewed to avoid negative reviews.
  • Choosing which reviews get displayed (ie. avoiding sites in which negative reviews exist)

The fact is that online reputation management, and the process in which dealers are utilizing, are becoming more and more important for the many reasons I described above.

How do you feel about this? What’s ethical or unethical regarding online reputation management?

Originally published on DrivingSales.com

With the Verizon iPhone Coming, Is It Time To Re-Think Mobile Marketing?

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With today’s announcement of the iPhone coming to Verizon, you have to analyze the mobile market and wonder if it’s time to embrace mobile marketing (if you haven’t already).

The facts are that 85% (264 million) of the US population (307 million) has a cell phone.

 

Smartphones accounted for about 30% of all phones as of Oct. 2010 but that number is projected to overtake non-smartphones in 2011 per Nielsen. That would take the number of smartphone users to 132 million across all cell networks – almost 1/2 the population of the U.S.

Android and iPhone users account for about 1/2 the total number of smartphones in use but the iPhone accounts for 65% of AT&T smartphone subscribers. I’m expecting that the chances that the percentage of Verizon smartphone users who have an iPhone will approach, if not eclipse, the percentage that AT&T has. Assuming this holds true, the iPhone will end up accounting for 86 million smartphones with the Android comprising 30 million.

A large percentage of the US population will have, and be using, smartphones. According to Morgan Stanley, mobile internet usage will overtake desktop internet usage within 4 years (by 2014).

Getting the picture? This isn’t even accounting for web traffic originating via iPads, iPod Touches and Android-based tablets. It also doesn’t account for traffic generated through apps.

Bottom line is that you need to have a mobile website and/or make sure that you’re existing website is mobile-friendly, at the very least.

It’s time to seriously re-visit a mobile marketing strategy if you don’t have one. Don’t play catch-up later.

 Originally published on DrivingSales.com

 

Creating Revenue through the new Groupon Stores

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Last night, the popular consumer shopping website Groupon announced the implementation of Groupon Stores.

For those unfamiliar with Groupon, here is the skinny: Groupon offers customers discounts on products and services in which Groupon has negotiated with the business for discounts based on an agreed upon number of people accepting the offer. They offer 1 deal per day, per city and then market this deal to the members in that market. They currently have over 33 million subscribers.

Groupon collects a 50% commission on sales from the business for each offer BUT, since they only offered one deal per day, the exposure was fantastic since everybody saw it. It didn’t get “lost in the crowd”. It was still a VERY steep cost but the advantage businesses have found from utilizing Groupon in their marketing efforts is from attracting NEW customers and focusing on customer retention.

With the launch of Groupon Stores, businesses can set up their own Groupon distribution presence and offer (and control) their own discounts. There is still a commission but it has been drastically reduced to only 10% of sales.

Groupon is promoting several features of it’s new stores:

  • “Setup a permanent (and free!) e-commerce presence on Groupon for promoting their business.
  • Create their own offers to run deals whenever they want.
  • Submit deals to be promoted to Groupon subscribers through email and the Deal Feed.
  • Get customers to follow their Groupon Store, and stay in touch by sending messages through the daily email and deal feed.”

This could be leveraged well in your service department by running oil change specials, tire deals, etc. It would give your dealership the exposure through Groupon via the free business-specific page they’ll provide.

This new page will probably offer your dealership some SEO value as well but my advice would be to not set up a page if you don’t plan to offer any discounts. Too many dealerships have “Specials” pages on their own website that don’t have any specials on them. Don’t compound that huge mistake by participating in more “deal” websites in which you don’t have any deals.

The biggest benefit to utilizing Groupon’s Store is that they will market it to their members in your area through both e-mail and via the other announced new feature – the Deal Feed, which is sort of like a Facebook wall for consumers to see the deals offered in their area as well as deals offered from businesses they “follow”. This does come at a cost (10% of sales from the offered deal) but the marketing power to attract new customers is huge.

With the rumor-mill steadily increasing that Google is going to  buy Groupon, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Groupon deals integrated into Google Place Pages. This would increase the perceived value of Google Place Pages to consumers in that it would centralize a single page in which consumers can get business information, see business reviews and see what deals the merchant is currently offering.

The new feature rolls out today in a few markets but will be available shortly to everyone.

 Originally published on DrivingSales.com

 

Podcast Episode Beta: Intro to Facebook Pages

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Hi everyone. Despite the rumors, I have not fallen off the edge of the
Earth. I have taken a position and have been working secretly making the
universe …. uh, well, I’ve been working. All will be revealed soon.
My blog, on the other hand, has been my red-headed step-child and I’ve
neglected him.

This podcast is the first podcast I’ve ever made.
It’s an introduction to Facebook Pages and includes some great tips that will
be new to novices and some veterans.

It is numbered “beta” because it
was also a test of quality, functionality and efficiency of many things –
software, hosting, microphone, etc.

It was unscripted and fairly
free-flowing so I hope you enjoy it and gain some insight into Facebook
Fan Pages. Your feedback is much appreciated.

Was it too long? too short?
Was the sound quality good?
Was it informative?
Was it easy to access and listen to?

Thanks in advance and enjoy!

Click the “Play” button.

Played: 20 | Download | Duration: 00:12:01

Google Unveils “Hotspot” – its own Location-Based Service

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Well, we may have just found out why Google reviews and place pages have been acting crazy for the last few months (reviews disappearing and re-appearing, etc.)

Mashable announced that Google unwrapped it’s own new location-based service named “Hotspot” tonight.

“With Hotspot, users will be encouraged to rate and review businesses directly from their Google-linked profile. Users’ ratings and reviews are tracked with a counter at the top of each profile, and likes and dislikes are remembered and used in Google’s recommendation engine.”

I have yet to play with it but from the description – easy to use, simplistic, easy to write reviews – it seems like something non-techy people might get into or, at the very least, utilize when researching businesses – need a place to eat? – while on the go.

Whether the “average” person leaves a bunch of reviews is moot, in my opinion. Reviews will be left in the same manner that they have been on Google. The only difference will be that there will be one more venue with which to leave a review.

The fact that Google is still the dominant way in which most consumers start a business search leans heavily in their favor. Even with Facebook Places’ shadow ever present, in this arena – reviews- Google definitely has the edge.

This development also should encourage business owners to shift reviews back towards Google Place pages, especially if “likes”, “dislikes” and number of reviews left are weighted factors in Google search results as seems to be indicated by this article.

This story is definitely still developing so it’s way too early to foresee any definitive ramifications from this. I can definitely tell you that you should stay tuned, I will be.

Oh, and if anyone has an Android phone, supposedly this is accessible immediately. If you want to check it out and comment back, that would be appreciated!

Originally published on DrivingSales.com 

 

The New Facebook ‘Groups’ and Why You Should Care

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I don’t want to make this a long “what-it-is” sort of article because there are an amazing number of those available. Here’s a link to the best one, in my opinion – The New Facebook Groups: All You Need To Know (Watch the little 2-minute video on that page for an easy introduction.)

Now before I get into the reasons WHY you should participate, go NOW and secure the vanity e-mail address for your company name, group, club, whatever.. some people cannot get there via the normal path as it’s not completely rolled-out to everyone BUT there is a direct link that will allow you to get there. – Facebook Groups 
Go create your group, then, once you’ve created it, in the top right corner, click “Edit Group”. Kind of in the middle of the box, there will be an option to create a group e-mail address. Get yours. Just trust me on this. I’ll get around to explaining what it means and why you want it.
Alright, to the meat and potatoes…
In the beginning, Facebook was created and it was good. (Uh, not that far back)
Think of Facebook like your living room. In its origins and/or in its origins for YOU, you invited people into your living room. When you talked, they could listen and vice versa. 
The problem is that Facebook has grown so exponentially that many users have invited too many people into their living rooms. So now you have all these people, all talking at the same time and nobody hears anyone else.
Facebook’s FIRST attempt at solving this problem was trying to filter out the people in your living room who you listen and respond to the most by filtering your news feed into “Top Stories” and deciding who amonsgst the people in your living room deserves a spot within your news feed at all (EDGE score). Remember I said that FACEBOOK DECIDES who you hear…. not you.
Now we have the new Facebook Groups.
Facebook Groups is designed to allow you to segment your social circles and communicate only with those that you wish to at any point in time. Do you want to post those drunken party pictures? Make a group of your party friends. All of those business content shares would be shared with your business connections.
This functionality in Facebook already existed in the form of “Lists” but they were unwieldy and difficult for people to use and setup so they weren’t used. 
With the new ‘Groups’, it is much easier to do this and share the content you want to with ONLY the people you want to without creating and managing lists and tweaking privacy settings.
There can be an infinite number of groups with the same name – ie. Family, Friends, Business, etc. BUT only one of those groups can have the vanity GROUP E-MAIL ADDRESS (ie. family@groups.facebook.com ) 
What does the group e-mail address do? It allows any member of your group to email content to that e-mail address and share it with the group. In marketing terms and strategies, it’s important to understand that, to get people to interact, the easier you make it the better so you’ll want to acquire the vanity email address that is simple for you. Instead of having to tell your group members to e-mail family@groups.facebook.com, you’ll be forced to find some creative new e-mail address.. but c’mon, wouldn’t it be easier to have your company name or keyword email address?
The new Facebook ‘Groups” are like social networks within the social network. You can group chat, share and edit documents, links, video, etc. The beauty of groups is that they are group-managed. Anyone within the group can invite anyone else to join. No admin permission required (unless they have no connection and/or weren’t added by any member of the group). So ‘Groups’ lets you interact with any member of the group WITHOUT them having to be your “friend” so while you can interact and share freely within the group, you can rest assured that your Facebook profile and wall are still secure. (Caveat: An Admin CAN remove people from the group. If it’s your group and someone you invited into it invites someone in that you do not want there and/or they are disrupting the group, you do have the power to boot them from the group IF you are an Admin. Want a group of employees? When someone leaves your company, you can remove them from the group.)
Facebook got too “noisy” for some people. This is the way you’ll be able to reduce that noise by kicking people out of the living room so you can hear and interact with only those you want to at that moment BUT not kick them out of the house (ie. un-friend them). You have your family in the living room, your business associates in the kitchen, your friends in the game room, etc. and YOU move from room to room as you choose which group you want to share and interact with.
The internet is transforming AWAY from a destination place and TOWARDS a means of travel. What do I mean? People are using social networks and apps more and more every day. They’re getting the news from Facebook and Twitter and then sharing it with their friends. In the future, people won’t go to PLACES (ie. websites) on the internet… they’ll go to a PLACE (ie. Facebook). They’ll use the internet as only a means to get there.
People spend more time on Facebook RIGHT NOW than on Google Search and all of Google’s properties combined. This trend is only going to continue. 
Groups will transform Facebook, I guarantee it. They have big plans to keep adding new group functionality.
Don’t wait and find this out later. Just go grab your group vanity email address now… if you want to wait after that, feel free. 
Yesterday was like the big domain name land-grabs of the past but it’s happening RIGHT NOW. Don’t be scrambling to grab your “real estate” later. 
If you do, you’ll be sorry.

On Facebook, Sometimes Less Is Better

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Social Media Marketing is not meant to be your businesses’ sole means of marketing but rather it’s meant to compliment your existing marketing.

I see businesses scrambling to create presences in the social media spectrum daily without any clue what their goal is. Seeing as I’m in the automotive industry, most dealerships that I see diving into the social media party believe that the “goal” of this endeavor is to “sell cars”. By their actions, it seems as if their true goal is “acquiring friends”. If you go into Social Media Marketing with either of these goals, you are wasting your time.
I’m going to focus specifically on Facebook here but this advice applies to pretty much any social media site.
When a business first dives in and creates a Facebook page, they concentrate on acquiring as many “friends” as possible. While it’s fun to see that you have lots of “friends”, the whole purpose of your Facebook page is to engage with your customers. 
Are these “friends” you’re acquiring customers (or potential customers) or are they a collection of other dealerships, vendors, employees, etc.? 
If your answer is the latter, your social media efforts are wasted time. Chances are really high that none of these people are going to buy cars from you, get their cars serviced at your dealership, or do anything that is income generating for your business. 
What you want to do is captivate an audience of people (ie. friends) that are potential income. You want to market your Facebook page to your real customers. Tell your walk-in traffic. Tell your customers who buy cars from you. Tell your service customers. Include your Facebook page in your other marketing. 
Acquire “friends” that are meaningful. 
I’d rather have a group of 100 customers that I can engage with that would potentially do (or have done) business with me than 5000 friends who will never buy anything.
This obsession with gaining as many friends as possible is counter-productive. The goal of Facebook marketing is engaging with and marketing to your customers, not acquiring friends. If you do it right, in a passive, non-intrusive way with meaningful content, your message will be heard by the right people (customers) and you will reap the benefits.
It’s the quality of your “friends” that count, not the quantity.

Using foursquare to Bring Customers to Your Dealership for FREE!

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I know some people think foursquare is stupid and that’s OK.

Some people also think playing video games is stupid but that hasn’t stopped consumers from spending almost $8 billion dollars per year.

As a brief summary, foursquare is a location-based game in which people use their GPS-enabled cellphones to “check-in” at locations. Checking in earns them points, badges and mayorships. It’s all fun and, for the most part, you don’t get anything but bragging rights out of it with your friends. I explained why I thought dealers should pay attention to foursquare in a previous blog post.  I also briefly touched on the idea I go into in this blog post.

It has been exploding with new user registration now boasting about 1 million users and adding about 50,000 per day. This, of course, is attracting major brands such as Starbucks, Pepsi, Macys and more to see what they can do to use it for their benefit.

According to a New York Times article today , Pepsi just worked out a deal with foursquare to offer “live notification(s) when customers are near stores” that carry Pepsi products. Pepsi relies on stores to sell Pepsi products so their interest is in directing customers into those stores. They’ve also combined their foursquare campaign with their Pepsi loyalty campaign so when people check-in at those stores, they actually earn Pepsi points for their loyalty account in addition to the points they receive on foursquare.

I’m waiting for an automotive manufacturer to start a similar campaign since they are pretty much in Pepsi’s shoes and rely on dealerships to move vehicles. Why not have an OEM campaign designed to drive customers to dealerships? (I wouldn’t be surprised if Ford is the first OEM to try this. They’ve certainly embraced social media marketing.)

Foursquare has also started catering to businesses and offering businesses the opportunity to offer their customers specials, coupons and freebies. It includes with it analytics of your business (as related to foursquare check-ins). You can see more about their program here (Foursquare + Your Business ). Here’s a sample image (from that page) showing you kind of what you “could” do when people check-in:

Without  going into too much detail, the one thing that foursquare users love is badges. People go to places and do things just to get badges. The badges don’t really “do” anything. They’re just cool and, well, it is a game after all.

Whether you like foursquare or even know what it is, there’s at least one immediate thing you can do to drive traffic to your dealership, cater to the game.

There exists a badge on foursquare called the Swarm badge. This badge can only be unlocked when 50+ users check-in at the same place and at the same time (within an undisclosed time frame). This is particularly hard to get, for obvious reasons.


Dealerships use promotions all the time designed to bring people to their lot. Radio station promotions, Gas card and movie ticket giveaways, free food, live entertainment, etc.

Why not hold a “Swarm” event?

It’s not hard and it’s free. Worst that could happen: nobody shows up. Best case scenario: you have people on your lot. Accompanied with an appropriate Twitter campaign, you will generate interest and you may even get foursquare to help market your event. They’ve been known to do that. If foursquare tweeted just one tweet about your event, 60,000+ people would get exposed to your store. I guarantee that consumers in your market will also re-tweet this event as they will have a vested interest in ensuring that as many people show up as possible.

Consumers get barraged with all the “typical” dealership events and they tend to tune them out, in my opinion. We have so many “sales” that a customer probably feels like there’s a sale every week so the “sense of urgency” a sale is designed to instill is negated by the fact that we have them so often and, in some cases, all the time.

Do you know why Nordstom’s sales are so popular? They only have them twice a year. Really. Only twice. They never deviate from that and customers know it. That’s creating a true sense of urgency.

A Swarm event would create a true sense of urgency, even if only for foursquare users. They would have to come on a specific time on a specific date and they will come, I promise.

You never know, you may even have such a great turnout that the people on your lot at your swarm event earn the even more coveted Super Swarm badge where 250+ people have to check-in.

All I know is anything that’s free and will bring 50+ people to my dealership on a specific date and time would definitely be something I would try out. 

Just having 50+ people on your lot at the same time would bring non-foursquare users onto your lot. Why? Humans are curious beings. If they’re shopping for a car (or even just driving by), they may stop to see what’s going on. Heck, people also like attention. I could very easily see someone buying a car right then just to show off!

Having people on your lot is never a bad thing. This could help them get there.

After that, what you do with them is up to you.

Why Social Media Marketing is Important For Any Business

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Recently, I attended the Digital Dealer 8 conference in Orlando, FL. I was working most of the time but did get an opportunity to have an interesting conversation with Ron Morrison – the “ron” in ronsmap.

If you have not heard of ronsmap , start looking into it quickly. In my opinion, it could absolutely be the next Craigslist but for cars. This video explains what it is better than I ever could.

If you don’t have your inventory there yet, call whatever company is handling your inventory feeds and/or ronsmap and get it there.

Ron and I started talking about the future of internet departments. I told him it was my opinion that, in the future, there wouldn’t be any. I expressed why in a previous blog post . I expressed my belief in the importance of building your internet sales and that, in my opinion, a good internet department would account for 40-60% of any dealerships inventory with that percentage increasing in the future.

He countered with the following question:

“If my dealerships’ internet department accounts for 40% of my dealerships’ business, why would it be important to me, as a dealer, to focus on increasing that departments’ sales versus focusing on increasing my retail departments’ sales?“

I answered with what I thought were the obvious answers:

  • increase units sold
  • increase website traffic
  • increase exposure
  • lower cost per sale in internet vs. retail
  • be where the customers are
  • etc.

Other people threw some answers in there also. While none of these answers are wrong, none of them really “hit the nail on the head” of the importance of social media marketing.

After all of our attempts at answering his question, he countered with a question that, in my opinion, summed up, in its entirety, why it’s important for any business (not just car dealerships) to embrace and engage their customers utilizing social media.

“How much would it be worth to you, Mr. Dealer, if every customer that bought a car from you went home and told 130 of their friends?“

He also asked me what the first call to action on any businesses’ website was and, again, the obvious guesses (contact us form, quick quote, and other forms of engagement) were not what he was looking for.

“The first call to action on any businesses’ website is a “Share” button.”

The reasoning he gave was that, if a customer that visits your website sees, and clicks, the share button, he just offered you free advertising. He’ll get the name, number and the opportunity to speak with the customer if they’re willing to share your website with their friends, family and colleagues unsolicited.

I’ve been hearing, both in our industry forums and in feedback on conference sessions, that social media is overrated and that too many vendors and companies are focused on it when their efforts would be better focused elsewhere.

While it may be a little over-kill to have EVERY session and vendor focusing on that while neglecting all the other aspects, tools and best practices for you to learn about, that doesn’t make it unimportant.

Statistics don’t lie. Facebook may become the search engine of the future. Right now, SEO is focused on Google Page One management. It’s very possible that the future will bring a different focus – Facebook search results. SEO and SMM may become synonymous. With all the integration happening, they will, at the very least, become symbiotic.

The real power (and value) in social media marketing lies not in being there for your business’ sake, but in being there for your customer’s sake.

Why would you not want to make it easy for your customers to “spread the word” about your business to their friends?

What I don’t understand is why people differentiate between SEO, SMM, Reputation Management, etc.

They are all the same thing.

It’s like having a Happy Meal in front of you and saying that you think the fries are the most important part and that you’re only going to eat those. The rest doesn’t matter.

I know that if you ordered a Happy Meal, and they only gave you fries, you wouldn’t be happy.

Eat the whole Happy Meal, not just the fries.

I promise your belly will be fuller and you’ll be.. well.. happier.

And The Winner Is… (Summary of Auto-Related 2010 Webby Nominees)

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The Webby Award nominees for 2010 have been announced.

Why should you care?

The nominees provide a great resource for your marketing efforts. You can look at the sites and marketing campaigns and get great ideas that you can implement into your own online marketing efforts. I’ve summarized the ones that are directly connected to the automotive industry below but don’t neglect to look at the others.

If you want to see the complete list, you can see it here: complete list

Websites – These sites illustrate great visual design, functionality and usability.

Category: Automotive

Every 5 seconds (Toyota)- http://www.toyota-screensaver.ru
Porsche Panamera Website (Porsche)- http://panamera.com/#/home
Prius GOOD Website (Toyota) – http://awesome.good.is/ecosystem/index.html#/get-started
The GTI Project (Volkswagen)- http://awards2.digivault.co.uk/?p=493
Toyota Prius Website (Toyota) – http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/minisite/newprius/

Category: Best Visual Design/Aesthetic

Prius GOOD Website (Toyota)- http://awesome.good.is/ecosystem/index.html#/get-started

Interactive Advertising – These campaigns illustrate great examples of how to set yourself apart from your competition.

Category: Banner Campaigns

Prius iMedia Banner Campaign (Toyota) – http://www.tmspreview.com/prius/iMedia/banner_campaign/

Category: Best Use of Social Media

Everybody Knows Somebody Who Loves A Honda (Honda) – http://www.rpa.com/hondasocialexperiment/

Category: Branded Content

The Fun Theory (Volkswagen) – http://www.adqualifier.com/webby2010/thefuntheory/index.html

Category: Game or Application

BMW Z4 Augmented Reality (BMW) – http://www.ddawards.com/2010/awards/bmw/
The GTI Project (Volkswagen) – http://awards2.digivault.co.uk/?p=493

Category: Mobile & Experience Marketing

Prius iPhone Times Square Application (Toyota) – http://www.tmspreview.com/media/prius/reuters_video/

Category: Online Campaigns

The Fun Theory (Volkswagen) – http://www.adqualifier.com/webby2010/thefuntheory/index.html

Category: Online Guerilla & Innovation

The Fun Theory (Volkswagen) – http://www.adqualifier.com/webby2010/thefuntheory/index.html

Category: Viral Marketing

The Fun Theory – Piano Stairs (Volkswagen) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw

Mobile – These sites excel at the ever-growing Mobile Web experience

Category: Integrated Mobile Experience

REAL NAVIGATION GAME (Honda) – http://interactive-salaryman.com/pieces/realnavigame_e/
Real Racing GTI (Volkswagen) – http://work.akqa.com/entry/webby/1/gti/

Category: Social Networking

NISSAN Ski Challenge PROVE IT (Nissan) – http://demo.bisystem.com/Skichallenge/

As a wise man once said “Imitation is the sincerest of flattery” (Charles Caleb Colton)

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