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Matt     Mar 04, 2009
So, we're all figuring all of this out real time and in public. No surprise there. Having worked with NMS for years, I certainly vouch for their transparency in all their seeding efforts, so on behalf of Big Spaceship I apologize for the implication that there was something shady there.

The truth is that metrics in social media campaigns are still works in progress. Facebook, for examples, counsels thinking of each instance of a brand's appearance in a newsfeed -- or anything else for that matter -- as having the value of a media impression. But that's kind of throwing hands up in the air and denying the social source of the "impression."

Any campaign effort into a social space, be it a (hopefully) viral video or a game or a cause... requires a push at the start. NMS does provide that initial awareness into communities that already exist so that there are enough people who know about it to give the campaign a chance to spread. And they never pretend, never shill. The fact that their work winds up appearing alongside the activity of the people they are moving seems to be inherent to the tools.

I'm not that up on this campaign specifically, but I also very much grant Sam's point that there is nothing inherently wrong-headed about associating a product with lifestyle elements or current events. Bob Dole was a spokesman for Doritos right after losing to Bill Clinton. He and Doritos made a paid transfer of cultural relevance. I know -- old example, but just shows there's nothing particularly off-key about an election being a part of a product campaign.

Sam Huxley     Mar 04, 2009
Here are the links for the above post, which didn't make it into the comment: Techpresident http://techpresident.com/node/6485
And Ambinder's Atlantic Monthly post: http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/freshly_squeezed_election_twee.php

Sam Huxley     Mar 04, 2009
Hi Tina,

Thanks for your interest in our work, and also for a non-Skittles related Twitter Marketing post. I wanted to clarify a few things about the campaign that you might want to update your post with:

* This project was not related to an overall Tropicana online RFP.

* While NMS and JESS3 employees promoted the campaign, fully disclosed, we were a fraction of the 70+ blogs and news outlets that picked up AnOrangeAmerica. For example, Micah Sifry of Tech President covered it: Link
as did Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic: Link - I can assure you that neither is an NMS employee, and I would appreciate it if you could take another look and update your post to reflect that all of our own coverage was disclosed, and that "a bunch of their own people talking about their own project" did not make up significant part of the reach, or the placements. The fact that most of the Del.icio.us links are listed chronologically may have thrown you off, and if you look at the following result pages you will see most of the coverage I'm talking about and more documented there.

In response to your "What does orange juice have to do with politics...I'd probably turn to CNN or Twitter itself" comment, brands have associated themselves with different lifestyle interests since the beginning of marketing. One could also ask what a car brand has to do with music, almost any kind of sports sponsorship, or movie tie in. Elevating brand attributes above product relevance is a widespread strategy, especially for CPGs. I've done a lot of great work with Big SpaceShip in the past, and please feel free to contact me if you have any other questions I can clarify for you on this or any other campaign.

Thanks,

-Sam Huxley
shuxley (at) newmediastrategies.net

Alan Valek     Mar 04, 2009
What a disaster this whole thing has turned into....did they not use focus groups or anything before the launch of this product? I didn't know Pepsi owned them too, it seems like they're trying to modernize / clean up all their products for '09—except for this one now LOL. I think they should have kept it, whatever, they got enough backlash on it, the people have spoken. I think they look like bigger idiots now that they're running back to the old design, makes them look like they don't know what they're doing. That agency that did the re-design does good work too, I feel bad for them.