Jittery marketing pioneers at big brands have chugged antacids, taken up yoga and updated their resumes as they await proof that their early forays into big-budget social media programs will be successful.

Quite frankly, it’s hard to hide from data-rich digital platforms like Facebook, which are increasingly hard wired into CRM databases or, scarier yet, the cash register. And the C-suite has made it clear they want to move the needle and marketing executives are at the very tipping point of success.

When the authors of a Harvard Business Review case study reported in March that they had proven a small chain of Texas dessert cafes was experiencing a business spike because of its consumer outreach on Facebook, marketers smartly took note.

In the piece, One Café Chain’s Facebook Experiment, Utpal M. Dholakia and Emily Durham revealed that fans of Houston-based Dessert Gallery visited the restaurants 20% more than non-fans, spending the highest share of their dining-out dollars there.  The finding: the long-term financial payoff of building a fan base far exceeded Dessert Café’s investment cost.

A month earlier, a similar eats-for-likes campaign had been launched by the Colorado-based bakery and quick service restaurant chain, Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Inc (disclosure: Einstein Bros Bagels is a client of my company).  Because Einstein Bros Bagels is publicly traded – under the apt NASDAQ ticker symbol BAGL – the company is required to share details of its financial performance each quarter with investors, so it’s not difficult to see the shmear on the wall.

A Bloomberg television interview on Feb. 8 disclosed Einstein’s inaugural campaign to distribute a coupon for a free bagel and cream cheese to every one of the brand’s Facebook fans. eMarketer’s social media analyst Debra Aho Williamson interviewed the company’s chief concept officer, James O’Reilly, who stated:

“The conversion rate we’re seeing in the Facebook-printed coupons is far greater than what we see in our regular printed coupons — well more than double our normal redemption rates,” O’Reilly said.

When the Bloomberg interview took place, Einstein was celebrating growth of its Facebook fan base from less than 4,000 to more than 300,000.  Based on the success of subsequent free bagel campaigns, through an application developed by Context Optional and promotion on Facebook, the fan base had grown to 600,000 by May.

How has Einstein’s business fared during the unprecedented bagel giveaway?  CEO Jeff O’Neill announced on May 6 that first quarter system-wide, same-store sales grew for the first time in five quarters.

“For the quarter, product innovation and creative promotions drove improvement in system-wide comparable sales and transactions, and we were pleased that consumers responded positively to our check building efforts despite intensifying competition in the breakfast daypart. We also improved our gross margins through our supply chain initiatives, and realized efficiencies in our manufacturing and store-level operations, which together facilitated 25.9% growth in adjusted net income for the period.”

On the quarterly Einstein Bros. analyst conference call, also on May 6, the enthusiasm that O’Reilly exhibited during the Bloomberg interview had not waned.

“Finally, on the advertising front, we placed a portion of our planned increased advertising investment in March and, just a few days ago, began our second national promotion on Facebook, which has already generated incredible buzz.  It provides a free bagel and cream cheese coupon to customers who choose to become a fan of Einstein Bros. on Facebook providing a significant base of customers we can market to directly and efficiently.  We already have more than a half a million fans on the Facebook network and expect this new effort to create even greater customer trial.”

In the same conference call, O’Reilly detailed the company’s multi-pronged strategy to bolster profits at the same time it was redeeming a large number of free bagel coupons.

“To counteract the check impact of our free bagel promotions, we implemented some check-building efforts, including the launch of two new, limited-time-only premium espresso drinks,” he said.

Based on its success using Facebook to boost Einstein’s fan base, brand awareness, in-store traffic, sales and profits — along with the company’s operational improvements and menu innovations — management told investors to expect an extension of this program in the months ahead.

“Looking forward, I know I speak for our entire team in saying we have the right strategies for delivering continued improvement in our comparable-stores sales performance throughout 2010 and will keep executing on what we already view as successful initiatives that are moving our business forward,” said O’Reilly.

Hats off to two retailers for getting creative giving freebies to consumers in February.  Neither had a damn thing to do with the Vancouver Winter Olympics, but Americans have medals on their minds this morning.  (Sorry, lame attempt at SEO boost.)

Beauty school and products operator Aveda set up six-spigot water fountains in front of a half dozen of its Manhattan stores to give away, drumroll please, New York City tap water.  Tying into Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, Aveda partnered with the city’s Department of Environmental Protection to use fire hydrant water and branded water fountains to diss bottled drinking water.  Despite the fact that no one used the Fifth Avenue fountain while I stood by last week, I applaud Aveda for being creative.  Next time, they should design the fountains so they don’t look like autopsy tables.  They win silver!

Of course, gold goes to those smart purveyors of bagels at Einstein Bros. and their West Coast sister chain, Noah’s.  Starting with a Facebook fan count of 4,000, the company launched a “Schmear Campaign” application that first rewarded legacy fans and then new fans with coupons redeemable for a free bagel and cream cheese.

Einstein Bros. not only saw its fan base surge past 400,000 last week, the publicly traded company also benefited from earned media coverage. Anyone who doubts the PR value of social media should just shut up and eat a toasted everything bagel with lox spread.

Riders of elevators in New York City office buildings know what topics are trending on Twitter even before they fire up their computers each morning.

As legions of office workers scurry to their desks, the data they’re seeing on the Captivate elevator ad network is the same information driving editorial and sales decisions at a new consumer-driven online news network with a familiar name.

AOL is relaunching in December as an marketing-supported provider of original content in dozens of consumer and business markets. Unlike news products from Google and Yahoo, AOL is not simply aggregating articles from other news sites.

CEO Tim Armstrong plans to direct his growing team of employees and freelancers to write copy and create multimedia content based on what topics are drawing the largest amount of consumer attention at any given time. To hell with long tail, this play aims clearly at the head of the beast.

If executed well, Armstrong’s model will be appealing to brands that want their people, products and ideas to be included in relevant online content in real-time. The payback comes when the brands sponsoring timely articles and multimedia packages see better performance than current online advertising. The blowback, however, could happen if a brand’s desire to use the platform as an advertorial vehicle is not tempered effectively.

Advertorials and contextual adverising are not new business concepts. But uneasiness about polluting editorial content with paid information has kept them from scaling, beyond CNBC’s “Business of Innovation“ sponsored profile on IBM and a few similar efforts.

For decades in the news business, PR people and marketers have done the best they could to anticipate when topics will flare up in the media. At United Press International, where I cut my journalistic teeth, and later at PR Newswire, legendary features editor Fred Ferguson’s annual calendar (PDF) of “special sections” guided us to gather content just ahead of events and holidays.

Likewise, publishers prepare editorial calendars to make sure there’s ample bridal content to surround the inevitable bridal advertising that characterizes wedding-planning season, or Mother’s Day stories for late April. 

That long-lead material will be easy for Armstrong’s team to produce, with or without the sophisticated web-consumption algorithms and freelancer assignment site that are the secret sauce for the new AOL.

But it’s much harder to quickly build out credible, sponsored content around timely topics that could not be easily forecasted.

When Kanye West dissed Taylor Swift during the MTV Video Music Awards, it meant a glut of searches about the teenage crossover star and the rapper who loves Beyoncé. Social media chatter about the episode hockey-sticked first, followed quickly by entertainment news sites and mainstream broadcast and print media.

Some “breaking news” can be pre-packaged. There’s going to be two feet of snow in Buffalo any day now, so why not hit up Goodyear for a sidebar on snow tires?  Likewise, food poisoning outbreaks are happening like clockwork these days, so Seattle attorney Bill Marler has developed a formula for getting his name into the hands of media and victims’ families within hours.

If AOL can systemetize and monetize this “PounceNow” approach to marketing, it will become a welcome source of income for writers, photographers and videographers displaced in the old media Armageddon.  They’d welcome hearing the familiar AOL voice over their computer speakers saying, “You’ve Been Hired.”

Don’t let the mustard-colored sports coat fool you.  Tom Kunz is one hip CEO.

As head of Cenury 21 Real Estate LLC, Kunz is in an industry that’s being disintermediated by the Internet      and ravaged by the recession.  Yet I have never met a more positive, open-minded and technology-friendly executive.

What does he do right:

• He’s not afraid to experiment. Century 21 pulled its TV advertising budget and spent the cash to bolster its presence online. Kunz says brand recognition for the franchise was already in the high 90s, so there was no reason to spend millions on 30- and 60-second image spots.  The company is contemplating a switch back to TV, but it would be a web-based format where Century 21 branding was visible at all times on the screen.

• He understands the time-sensitive nature of news. When Congress extended incentives aimed at first-time homebuyers, Kunz dropped what he was doing to record a 2 minute presentation on a tiny, inexpensive Flip video camera. His comments were up on Century 21’s YouTube channel within minutes.  As of today, the video had been watched nearly 1,700 times.
• He takes counsel from Matt Gentile, Century’s 21’s director of corporate and brand communications. In an interview with PR Week’s Eric Iacono, during the Next conference, Kunz talked about making media outreach in local markets a priority.  By incorporating interviews with local print and broadcast media into trips, and inviting local Century 21 franchisees to participate, the organization lands extended coverage rather than the short soundbites afforded by national media.
• He doesn’t hoard good information. While many CEOs would stay silent about marketing strategies, Kunz is a walking dictionary definition for transparency, even sharing his age (61) with the crowd.  As for naysayers, he advises them to watch the AT&T  “Lost Dog” YouTube spot to explain power of social media.

I also liked Tom’s ability to be self-effacing in a manner that seemed genuine:  “I’m a gadget freak,” he told those attending the Next event at the Waldorf Astoria. “It doesn’t mean I know how to use them all, but I buy them all.”

Tom was kind enough to do a short interview with me following his appearance at Next. Please excuse my camera work, as his head is halfway out of the frame for portions of the video.  Yet another reason I never worked in TV.

Zillow just scored a nice Wall Street Journal hit, along with 300+ references in Google News, for its inaugural “Trick-or-Treat Housing Index.”  Timing of its October 26 blog post was excellent, with ample time to spread virally before Halloween.

The premise was to look for the most affluent and safe neighborhoods where the houses are closest together, reasoning that’s where costumed kids could haul the most candy with the least amount of walking.  It’s great branding for the Seattle-based online real estate resource, which promises to spread the index beyond its hometown next year. (Childhood obescity experts will undoubtedly position themselves for the counter attack.)

When I was a kid in Rochester, New York, the Rapp family was the local Canada Dry soda distributor.  They handed out cans of pop to kids in the tony Browncroft neighborhood on Halloween.  (One of the kids, C.J. Rapp, grew up to invent Jolt cola.)

This Saturday night, kids everywhere will readily share Halloween strategies that are not dissimilar to Zillow’s methodology.  But no matter how many Saf-T-Pops, Mary Janes or miniature Snicker bars are proffered, the real prize on Halloween will be figuring out which houses are doling out full-sized candy bars, whole packs of gum  or other top-shelf goodies.

A marketing and PR coup would be a branded mobile app that used GPS and crowd sourcing for strategic trick-or-treating.   Lord knows it’s possible.  Garmin makes GPS navigators capable of displaying known police speed traps, and FourSquare tells me which nearby bar is giving the first glass of wine away for free.

Those who say this could ruin Halloween should look at the benefits before passing judgment:  Kids with peanut allergies could tag houses handing out Skittles.  Vegetarian kids could avoid the Skittles (which contain gelatin).  Dentist homeowners could opt in to author their own “No Candy Here” disclaimer to lessen the chances of getting TP’d for giving away pencils and tooth-shaped erasers.

I’m going to stop now and write my CandySniffer app business plan.  Anyone know which VC funded Webkinz?

Photo credit: amykclark via Photobucket

Let’s take the social media temperature of the airline industry.

United breaks guitars. Bad situation, though I loved spokeswoman Robin Urbanski’s quip:  “This strikes a chord with us.”  She was classy while under fire.

Southwest allows its flight attendents to rap the pre-flight safety demonstration.  When SWA’s Paula Berg speaks to PR pros about emerging media, she always plays that wonderful video.

jetBlue has 1.4 million Twitter followers.  When the airline tweeted about a unique $599 pass that allowed unlimited flights during a traditionally slow month from mid-August to mid-September, they quickly sold out.

Malaysian carrier AirAsia trended on Twitter and was a top story on many news sites because a baby born onboard one of its jets was awarded free flights for life.

Delta issued a statement saying that laptop computers are prohibited on the flightdeck of  its flights and those of its Northwest Airlines unit.  Media reports, including this blog entry on LaptopMag.com, say the pilots overshot Minnesota’s Twin Cities airport because they were distracted by their laptops.

“I know whenever I get to playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook hours and hours can go by without my noticing. And I’ve missed my stop on the train more than once while heavily engaged with Chess Titans,” wrote K.T. Bradford.

Delta is a global company that serves plenty of developing nations.  These are some of the same regions where Nicholas Negroponte sought to distribute inexpensive, rugged, wifi-equipped laptops to help educate the world’s poorest children.  It seems to me that Delta could earn high marks from its customers by introducing a welcome distraction into the lives of kids who could benefit from a laptop: a large contribution to One Laptop Per Child.

I would value comments from readers on whether or not Delta should take additional public action, beyond its October 26 statement.

The media execs attending lunch at the Paley Center for Media Tuesday seemed relieved that they could take a break from watching their P&L’s get jackhammered by scrappy new entrants with tiny cost structures.

Not that the topic of conversation at this week’s schmoozefest, “The Great Digital Debate: Free vs. Paid Content,” was much of a diversion.

The biggest guffaws came when media futurist Shelly Palmer likened the media industry’s focus on free-versus-paid content to worrying about what song the band was playing aboard the Titanic.

The CEO of National Public Radio, Vivian Schiller, sounded a shrill warning for news organizations who might be tempted to begin charging for their content on the Internet.

While acknowledging the difference between NPR’s charter, which prohibits charging for content, and commercial journalism, Schiller said pay walls demonstrated “elitistm” and threatened to alienate the very audiences with which media organizations should be engaging.

Steve Brill, the founder of American Lawyer and CourtTV, now runs Journalism Online. He dismissed criticism of his latest company’s business goal — to provide publishers with mechanisms through which they can charge for content.

Brill asserted that no news organizations have been able to survive on advertising alone, saying that publishers have always had to balance circulation revenue with advertising and other factors to arrive at the right mix.  One example he gave was the free magazines provided to passengers on the Delta Shuttle, on which hundreds of thousands of well-heeled business passenger have flown for years.  While readership could easily be puffed up through such giveaway programs, there was a price to pay on the subscription side of the business.

Commodity content — weather, lottery numbers and roughly 90% of the material most news organizations present on their web sites — would not be good candidates for subscriptions, cautioned Brill.  The other 10% could command a fee, and Brill claimed to have received 1,200 inquiries from “affiliates” eager to begin charging.

A video of the entire discussion was added today to the Paley Center website.

We’ve all heard how Orson Welles made his radio theater production of “War of the Worlds” so realistic that it panicked among many listeners who honestly thought earth had been invaded by Martians.

True masters of radio broadcasting understand how to dazzle – how to describe a scene and then deliver the goods in a way that is more personal and vivid than film or video.

One such person was Stacie Hunt, who concocted a phony Woodstock-sized outdoor rock concert festival that was simulcast over an ad

hoc network of mainly FM stations in the 1970s, years ahead of MTV. Such care was taken to make the concert marathon sound authentic that the on-scene deejays described food, rockers’ clothes and even the weather. I swore at the time that I could smell pot smoke coming from my stereo’s speakers.

It was that ability to suspend reality in the process of promoting something – in this case, a bunch of rock bands and the advertisers who paid for spots during the concert – that made the company started by Stacie and her business partner, former Entertainment Tonight director Sally Jewett, such a success.

On the Scene Productions (OTSP), along with Medialink and several competitors, benefited from the Reagan-era decision to allow the use of satellites for commercial use rather than just military, government and academic communications.  PR professionals instantly welcomed video news releases, satellite media tours and other electronic publicity tools as a way of telling their story to TV and radio listeners.

The era is quickly ending.

PR Week’s Tonya Garcia broke the story yesterday that OTSP, which had been sold to the investment firm Socious Capital, had furloughed its employees and faced bankruptcy.  That followed by one week the approval of a deal that merged the formerly formidable Medialink into the tiny, VC-backed digital video warehousing company TheNewsMarket.

It’s ironic that government deregulation gave birth to an industry that has withered largely because of a misguided Federal Communications Commission decision to blame VNR producers and their customers for sloppy newsroom practices at TV stations.

For those who haven’t followed the issue, there were a number of highly publicized instances of corporate- and government-handout video being aired by TV stations that did not attribute its source.  At least one station was fined and the industry collapse began.

The loss of pillars of the electronic PR service sector is certainly unfortunate for the employees and investors. But mourning is done best while recalling the unique and wonderful attributes of the deceased.  In the case of OTSP, I am convinced that many of today’s experts in digital communications have been inspired by the company’s professionalism and creativity.  They will remain “on the scene” for years to come.

Chocolate’s in the news today.  If Cadbury is gobbled up by Kraft — or Hershey or Nestle for that matter — how would that impact you or your clients?

With gold surpassing the psychological barrier of $1,000 an ounce, eBay reported 14k gold was the “biggest mover” today.   Not surprising, similar action is being seen on Craigslist. Investment advisors and consumer protection agencies should be having a field day.

The United Nations General Assembly is preparing to meet in New York September 15.  If your organization is gathering at the same time, can you draw parallels and attract attention?  Or maybe you have some wonderful gridlock-busting technology you should be showcasing in Manhattan during the mayhem.

Look out Conference Board, The Economist claims its Big Mac Index is an accurate financial indicator?  If you represent a global product or brand (and don’t mind calling attention to market-by-market pricing), challenge the sandwich to a duel.

Friday marks eight years since the attacks by al-Qaeda on New York and Washington. Is there a tasteful angle that points to ways you or your clients are dealing with the memory of the attacks, helping the families of victims or contributing to a safer world?

Red hot on Twitter over the past 48 hours are thousands of postings under the heading “When I was little, I…” Does this data reveal anything useful? Any emblematic kids’ products or insightful parenting authors want to jump on the bandwagon?

September is when thousands of green interns arrive at PR agencies to make a substantive contribution.  Too often, they are told to organize messy stacks of magazines and newspapers or validate media lists — anything to keep them from jeopardizing actual client work.

If you feel like trying something new — even beyond monitoring calls for help via ProfNet and HARO –  challenge your interns to establish a real-time assignment desk of sorts?  Have them monitor what’s happening right now, not events that occurred last month, last week or even during yesterday’s news cycle.

Very few agencies look at early social media indicators to predict what stories will spill over into mainstream media in the coming days or weeks.  Those who do often look only for specific keywords, like their clients’ and competitors’ brands, personnel and hot issues rather than taking a blue-sky approach that invites more creative connections to less obvious events and topics sure to command media attention.

By training the interns — and potentially a more experienced in-house staff of  “war room” news hounds — to use readily available, free Web resources, they can surface trending topics and match them against issues your clients are facing.  Account supervisors and management could hold a huddle each morning or afternoon to review what the interns have discovered.

Key to making this work is understanding the type of expertise you can offer influential bloggers and media covering a given story.  Are there experts within your client’s organization who could be interviewed? Do you have b-roll or digital photos to illustrate a point?  Is there any current research that could be summarized and distributed?

Any smart PR agency pro knows that this kind of approach could backfire if an ill-prepared client expert is powdered up for hastily prepared CNBC interview only to bomb on-camera.  Advance media training and content development are key. So is production and digital warehousing of media assets that can serve as sidebar material to amplify the points you’ll make in writing and on-camera.

Many of us continue operating as though year-old editorial calendars, quarterly account reviews and weekly client-agency conference calls are adequate to maximize opportunities — and minimize risk  — in a new generation where user-generated content contributes to a more fluid and often volatile online presentation of hot topics and news.

The new crop of interns might just teach us all something if given the chance.

Most corporate communicators would steer clear of a news event involving charged racial tensions and the police.

But President Obama’s use of a “beer summit” to calm the war of words between Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley opened the door slightly for gutsy PR pros who might want to latch onto the wave of media coverage surrounding the issue.

The new owners of my hometown beer, Genesee, in Rochester, NY, timed their pitch to perfectly, landing a nice item in Jennifer Rossa’s Private Equity Beat Wall Street Journal blog and a bunch of other TV, radio, newspaper and social media coverage.  Genesee brewed up a controversy over Obama’s choice of Bud Light as the beer he will be drinking tonight.  Bud’s parent, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, is based in Belgium.

“We think it’s great that the President is getting together over beers to have an important discussion. A lot of good solutions have surfaced when people can relax and talk over a couple cold ones,” said Rich Lozyniak, CEO of The Genesee Brewing Company. “We just hope the next time the President has a beer, he chooses an American beer, made by American workers, at an American-owned brewery like Genesee.”

The lesson here is that every big news story — in social media as well as mainstream print and broadcast — creates demand for sidebar material.  Cheers to the Genesee beer team for understanding the news cycle and pouncing.