Now here’s a good story.

Nearly two weeks ago, Mini released a video on Facebook and YouTube calling out Porsche in a heads-up, David vs. Goliath race.

Mini Cooper S VS. Porsche 911 Carrera S – a difference of 200HP and $65K.

Jim McDowell, Mini North American chief (and former Porsche exec) lays out the guideline.

Mini, who is no stranger to clever advertising, created an extensive campaign around this throwdown, through Facebook e-petitions, a full page color ad in the New York Times and even rented a plane and flew a banner reading, “Dear Porsche, Bring it! Love, MINI,” over Porsche’s North American headquarters.

Days passed as Mini and automotive enthusiasts alike waited for a response. Blogs buzzed, online car communities roared, tweets echoed and Facebook e-petitions and e-signatures exploded – the conversation was thick and the automotive community held their breath as they waited for a response. People were tuned in. Will Porsche send out their best and play into Mini’s PR antics? What’s there to gain if Porsche does accept?

Finally, Porsche responds to the children at Mini.

While your challenge seems like a fun and lighthearted campaign, we’ll stick to racing the way we have over the decades. We welcome you at Sebring, Le Mans, Daytona or any other sanctioned race where there is more at stake than T-shirts and valet parking spaces.

-North America Porsche president, Detlev Von Platen

Owned.

Along with the letter, Porsche also linked them to this video.

This campaign initiated a ton of conversation, but has lost momentum since Porsche’s letter.

Hyundai, however, stepped in and joined the PR blitz with its own video challenge as they explained, “our driver’s a bit busy this week preparing to set the World Record at Pikes Peak… but July is looking good.” Mini’s response? None yet.

Yesterday, as the clock continued to count down on Mini’s Facebook page, it was still unclear where the campaign was going, or even if the event was still being held. 1 hour, then 20 minutes, then 3, then 00:00:00.

Nothing.

It was only till this morning did we discover the results.

Can you guess? Porsche came out to play, and Mini lost, big time.

Though a 2 second difference in laptime isn’t the greatest of margins, the embarrassing loss of losing a race Mini created, hyped and marketed was a great blow to Mini’s image. This campaign had tons of energy in the beginning, then completely flopped. Nice try Mini, maybe you can salvage your reputation with Hyundai’s challenge.

Today’s top trending topic on Twitter has been “UNIQLO LUCKY LINEに行列なう。“, so what is it?

Japanese fashion retailer, Uniqlo, has created a campaign called “Lucky Line”, where fashion fans can auto-retweet their virtual line number on the Uniqlo website for a chance to be selected to win a 1,000 yen (9€, $11) voucher.

Sound silly? Well hundreds of thousands of people are participating – and this isn’t the first time Uniqlo has activated users on Twitter, check out UTweet and Uniqlock.

Check out the site and look at the growing line. Ah, I need discounted skinny jeans now!

“Adobe is lazy. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy” said Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, during a Town Hall company meeting.

Two months after the incident, an Adobe employee reply’s via blog,  “Go Screw Yourself, Apple”.

The gloves are on – it’s evident that these two heavyweights are ready to get in the ring. CreativeFeed breaks it down:

Two Top Tech Heavyweights – The Tale of the Tape

Surprisingly, these two giants were tag-team partners back in the day. Adobe and Apple used to have a good relationship. Apple used to own 20% of Adobe for a few years and even now, both companies still work together to serve the creative community. However, that is where their joint interests end.

The Apple iPhone and iPad have never supported flash, one of Adobe’s core offerings. In fact, Apple’s terms-of-service agreement prohibits it. No matter how much customers speculate and demand it, Steve Jobs refuses, and even wrote an open letter titled, “Thoughts on Flash“, stating his reasons.

As a result, Flash (and Adobe), lack a presence in mobile browsing, an industry that has exponentially grown in recent years.  Communities proficient in the development of flash and users (95% chance it includes you) currently suffer from limited web browsing freedom.

Two months after Steve Jobs’ manifesto, Adobe has finally responded with their marketing campaign called, “Freedom of Flash”, with a message of choice, open markets and love.

The Advertisements:

In today’s New York Times and Washington Post, enormous print ads were placed like the one seen below.

Online Display ads like this were seen on New York Times, Engadget and their own site, addressing Apple’s recent spate of clear and direct attacks against the company and its products.

The Letter:

Founders of Adobe, John Warnock and Chuck Geschke (pictured above), also replied with a letter titled, Our thoughts on open markets, which discusses Apple’s clear and direct attacks against the company and its products.

The Site:

Adobe creates a site, The truth about Flash, showcasing statics to “set the record straight” because “a fair amount of incorrect information has been communicated”

Our View from Ringside:

It looks like this bout is going to go the full 12 rounds, since these guys are just getting warmed up – and neither Jobs nor Geschke back down from a good fight. CreativeFeed can imagine Adobe continuing to go great lengths to defend its reputation and products in the open market, using consumer pull strategies to push Apple into opening up.  The question is – will any of this be enough to sway Jobs and his lust to wrestle power away from media industries and consolidate it in Apple products. (e.g. Music – iTunes, Books – the iPad bookstore and potentially the future of mobile viewing without Flash). Most likely not, since Jobs has never been one to answer to anyone, even his loyal fan base of Apple followers. (Okay, perhaps stockholders, but even that relationship tilts in his favor in a power struggle).

In regards to the opinions of both respective companies, it’s questionable whether either of them is truly “open” or representative of a “free market” as their letters and messages suggest. Adobe and Apple have both built proprietary products to gain competitive advantage, which they deserve to do. As this fight continues to rage on, we’ll see the future of how we all view and consume media play out. Our question – will either of their tactics, as the mudslinging gets worse, sully their images?  Or will the “free” market winner take home the Championship Belt and be dubbed King?

Okay, I’ll concede that those two are perhaps at the most extreme of either end of the spectrum. But there is still a point to be made: how effective are brand spokespersons? And more importantly, how much of an effect does their actions or image have on the brand itself?

Trite as it might be, the most recent and high profile example of a drastic shift in brand image is none other than Tiger Woods. Tiger lent his image and star-power to brands such as: Nike, Gatorade, AT&T, Tag Heuer, Gillette, Electronic Arts & Upper Deck – all for a small fee, of course. Some pulled the plug while others have remained by his side, for the sake of financial gains.

So the question remains: How does Tiger’s recently exposed marital infidelities effect how consumers perceive, and interact with, the brands he fronts?

• Are people really switching from Nike to Reebok apparel in light of the recent developments?
• Will men all across the nation swap their Gillettes for Bics for their morning shave, just because Mr. Woods can no longer look himself in the mirror?
• Will once-devoted Gatorade drinkers suddenly switch to Powerade simply because Tiger’s sexual exploits left a bad taste in their mouth?

Let’s skip past the obvious innuendo of the third example and get straight to the answers. Last month, Adweek Media/Harris Poll asked the following: “When a celebrity endorser gets involved in a scandal, how does this make you feel about the brand(s) he/she endorses?” An astonishing 74% of respondents say that it “has no impact.”

You can’t argue with that kind of response. Three out of four people claim that the actions of a celebrity endorser has no effect whatsoever on their perception of their brand?

Obviously there is a major difference if PETA activist and sponsor Pamela Anderson were to start walking around in fur coats and eating burgers, than if Luke Wilson, the unfortunate face of AT&T’s most recent wireless campaign, developed a drug addiction. Or worse, was exposed as a Verizon customer! GASP!

We want to know what you have to say :

• How important are brand spokespersons?
• How much do their actions really effect how you view their brand, for good or bad?
• Do brand sponsors have a responsibility to serve as a role model?
• Does it even matter if these fallen heroes learn lessons and right their wrongs when, regardless, they’re making more money than us regular folk can even fathom?

TweetUp and Twitter is keeping us very busy at the CreativeFeed office.

Yesterday, we blogged about Idealab’s latest startup, TweetUp, a service that will be applying search engine marketing and keyword filters to Twitter. Think AdSense and Google.

Later that day, Twitter announced Promoted Tweet, Twitter’s very own, and similar,  advertising platform.

Today, we ask ourselves, what are the similarities and differences between these two platforms?

We could provide you a lengthy explanation, but a Venn Diagram is a lot more fun.

Click to Enlarge

Creative Feed is also curious to know about the effectiveness and functionality of either service
•    Will paid vs. organic search results dilute the user experience of a genuine and open social community?
•    What will happen to the companies that don’t pay for keywords? Other services that involve paid search results have been labeled as cyber extortioners.

Back in January, the famous Australian wine brand [yellow tail] chose to donate $100,000 to the US Humane Society. As part of the “[tail] for tails” program launched by the brand, the donation aimed at demonstrating Yellow Tail’s commitment to rescue animals in peril.

But this move made American farmers, as well as consumers, upset, as the HSUS is opposed to factory farming and is allegedly using donations for political lobbying, rather than rescuing animals in peril.

How the crisis started:

Users poured angry comments all over the brand’s Facebook page. Troy Hadrick, a 5th-generation farmer from South Dakota,  resorted to YouTube to voice his disagreement, gathering more than 11,800 viewers to date.

Then, the discussion spilled to Facebook and Twitter. An alternate Facebook Page, Yellow Fail, gathered nearly 3,900 fans (vs. 2,200 for Discover Yellow Tail), while a #yellowfail hashtag provided buzz opportunities on Twitter.

How did Yellow Tail addressed the crisis?

Listening to consumers, yellow tail posted an official response on Feb 4th. Here is an extract:

We’ve listened to your recent feedback and it was very helpful to us – in fact it prompted us to specifically choose the areas where we’d most like to celebrate animals. Here’s what we’ve decided: We’ll still honor our monetary commitment to the HSUS, but now we are specifically directing our $100,000 donation to HSUS’ Animal Rescue Team, which launch on-the-ground missions to rescue animals in peril [...] We may not always agree with 100 percent of what an organization represents, but rescuing animals displaced from natural disasters is a cause we support.

Nevertheless, even if farmers and consumers are praising yellow tail for finally addressing their concerns, negative comments are still posted everyday. This shows such a crisis is extremely difficult to manage, and may entail consequences for weeks, if not months, to come. It might be interesting to know how much this breach in brand image has affected sales.

What lessons can we learn from this case?

If a brand wants to donate to a cause, it must do more research about who to donate to. Even if it’s a good cause, it doesn’t mean that the organization you are donating to doesn’t have foes. And if it has, why, who are they, and are they part of your consumer base and/or able to influence your audience?

For a wine brand, donating to an organization that is at war with the farming community is pretty dangerous. Vine growing and winemaking are also linked to agriculture. And the same goes for wine consumption: wine goes well with food, and wine pairs beautifully with meat.

A case study demonstrating the influence of the farmers’ community online

One of the most interesting facts in the Yellow Tail case is how the farmers community has been able to create a platform for a new conversation out of this accident. This shows a real shift in habits, interactions and use of technology, showing how new target audiences – namely the farmers community – have emerged online.

In fact, the Yellow Tail case gave a real opportunity for farmers, who were able to successfully use technology to rally consumer voices to their cause, leveraging Facebook, Twitter, industry sites and blogs to create a movement.

It may be a cheap shot to kick Maclaren strollers when they’re down, but the amputated finger storm that made it all the way to the Financial Times this week is a textbook example of why an active ongoing social media program is an essential facet of any good PR/marketing strategy.

By participating in the online conversation — having a company blog that is informative on issues important to parents (say, safely transporting children), or by contributing to customer sites, blogs and forums tangentially related to Maclaren products – the company would have been a bit less tone deaf and flat-footed in the face of such sensational news.

The FT does a good job today in “How Not To Take Care of a Brand” by John Gapper of detailing the missteps: ranging from delayed and insufficient reaction to complaints in the US (but not in other markets) to twittering and posting crisis/recall-specific pages that turned out to be dead links.

Know thy customer: “Anything relative to child safety tends to be off-the-charts viral,” says Pete Blackshaw, a brand consultant for Nielsen Online. According to Blackshaw’s data, new mothers are three times more likely than others to use social media and start blogs. “Given the higher order of sensitivity, parents are much more diligent,” says Blackshaw. “They want to talk to friends, family and even strangers about their decisions. They’ll go the extra distance.” Yahoo News

A pervasive product being used by such a connected and impassioned customer-base is usually the Holy Grail for a brand — and a strategic ongoing social media program is certainly essential for getting there. Maclaren shows us one other reason to be engaged and in-touch online: it can also help a brand withstand the riptide popular discontent.