Possibly the shortest Internet marketing conference ever, the Influence Project involved 60 speakers for 60 seconds. Some of the speakers included Brian Clark, Guy Kawasaki, Mitch Joel, Muhammad Saleem, Brian Solis and more.  MP3 recording and transcript  available through the above link.

Microsoft will donate $100,000 to Stephen Colbert’s new charity fund to help clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Colbert and Bing

Pepsi created the Refresh Everything and skipped advertising during superbowl (some saying it was a mistake) to give millions of dollars to fund ideas that will refresh the world to non-profits in six categories. Health, Arts & Culture, Food & Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods, and Education.

IKEA‘s Facebook campaign was a stroke of genius. Using the photo tagging feature, a bunch of showroom images were uploaded to the account of a store manager at their Malmo store. The first person to tag an object got to take it home.

Ford bet on social media to generate buzz to promote the new Fiesta ( story ) and head of social media Scott Monty has been hard at work and winning.

Dell stands out as one of social media’s best examples and have created success through a network of blogs, sale alerts on twitter, and listening to their customers via their community IdeaStorm.

Intuit created a community for it’s Quickbooks software users while being active on Twitter and Facebook.

Starbucks used crowdsourcing to create MyStarbucksIdea so customers share suggestions which others vote on, with the best being implemented.

Blendtec used video for its series Will It Blend and purees everything from the iphone and more for millions of views.

Zappos has an unparalleled commitment to customer service, and social media has allowed  them to form more personal connections with customers.

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, had the following to say…

“Brand building today is so different than what it was 50 years ago. 50 years ago you could get a few marketing people in a small room and decide, ‘this is what our brand will be’, and then spend a lot of money on TV advertising — and that was your brand. If you as a consumer only had your neighbors to talk to, you had to believe what the TV was telling you. Today anyone, whether it is an employee or a customer, if they have a good or bad experience with your company they can blog about it or Twitter about it and it can be seen by millions of people. It’s what they say now that is your brand.”

Or you could say that your relationships are your brand.

Other info of potential interest include this list of corporate blogs,

A lot of these brand verbs seems to be tied to technology, you can google something,  MSN or skype me, or tweet about something. Seems the verb transition for branding is online mostly, although you can xerox a copy or tivo a show too.

Some of have said that allowing a brand become a verb erodes brand value, although its not clear how that could be. If you have people using your brand name as a verb it seems like free marketing. Kleenex, Rollerblade and Band-Aid are a few offline examples.

There was a time when branding was about obsessing over its unique selling point (USP) to determine its positioning and how it would be perceived. Now we have a brand’s success often determined by how it might enhance a consumers’ world through its behavior. This is the bridge to making it a verb.

The power of a brand as a verb has one risk known as genericide, which means when a term is so prevalent, or generic, that it no longer sticks to a single company. Haven’t thought of any examples, but it can mostly be protected with trademarks.

Here’s a Bing spoof ad of what they’re up against.

It’s been a long time coming. Advertising has been about the same for some 50 years, but things just don’t work the way they used to. Within the last 5 years social media has grown so much that customers are more reliant than ever on referrals.

Marketers facing this shift find themselves looking towards social media to get in front of their audience and its a whole new ballgame. One recent development that advertisers should be aware of is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is watching the online space for signs that advertisers masquerading as independent third parties.

Now monitoring blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and many other social network platforms, the FTC is on the watch for advertisers posing as ordinary consumers raving or providing misleading testimonials on products or services. A recent example posted by Consumerist mentions a well known fast food chain posing as fans of a marketing campaign.

An excerpt from the FTC;

“The fundamental question is whether, viewed objectively, the relationship between the advertiser and the speaker is such that the speaker’s statement can be considered ’sponsored’ by the advertiser and therefore an ‘advertising message.’”

It’s probably a method used as long as the web has been around. I recall reading about ‘seeding’ being done by the music industry to launch new pop stars some years ago, and it probably continues today. But you can imagine how this might affect your online branding strategy should you be caught.

Online branding and reputation management is becoming more imperative to monitor, and with this news regarding the FTC, you’ll want to be listening to your endorsers as well as consumers.

What to take away from all this? Monitor, engage, and also be transparent, providing full disclosure where applicable.