Some fantastic stats and pretty powerful stuff I think you’ll agree!

The brand in question is of course Nike who managed to leverage the relationships they have built with many of the worlds top footballers such as Christiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Didier Drogba and Robinho, effectively showcasing a number of their products without a single reference to the World Cup in their communications and more importantly any Official Sponsor fees to FIFA.

Who could have failed to notice that the majority of the worlds top players were wearing Nike’s distinctive CTR360 Maestri Elite FG boots! Now whilst I’m sure Nike’s endorsement fees are considerable, these will have been dwarfed by the figure required for the equivalent airtime, ad space or the figures paid to become an official sponsor. And despite rival Adidas being an official sponsor, kitting out more teams (12 to Nikes 9) and providing the infamous Jubulani ball their brand awareness throughout the whole tournament ranks at only 14.4% of the ‘official and competitor buzz’ provided by Nielsen, compared to Nike’s 30.2%!

I make that Nike 1 Adidas 0 in the battle of the sports brands and there’s now certain pair of new boots on my birthday list for next month!

A unique, engaging and impactful approach and with the 3D craze set to stick around, hopefully we’ll start seeing a few of these campaigns in the UK soon…

We’ll, my money’s on Foursquare for those looking to really engage with their customers!

So what is it!? Foursquare is a location-based social networking App/Game. It gives users & their friends new ways of exploring the city they are in, earning points & unlocking badges for discovering new things, with the more they ‘check-in’ the more features which are unlocked!

It has been branded as a smarter Twitter that not only lets users update their status and connect with friends online, but also lets you find your Twitter friends in real-life, when in the same place at the same time.Benefits for brands include:

- opportunities to increase footfall
- recruitment of a network of brand ambassadors
- increased customer retention
- ambassadors will pass on recommendations to their friends / Twitter followers
- gather insights into the behaviour of customers / what incites consumers to visit stores

It is something which has quickly gathered uptake in the States and with early adopters in the UK including the likes of Debenhams, Domino’s Pizza and Vodafone, looks set for exponential growth in the UK similar to Facebook and Twitter.

I’m looking forward to seeing how brands utilise Foursquare, let me know your views, how you plan on taking advantage of this new opportunity and any successes you may have.

They wanted to make navigation into something “social” so they took to the streets of London and erected the worlds biggest signpost. An excellent example of creativity and technology coming together to make something special, ticking all the boxes.

The Audi billboard on the left, promoting the Audi A4 has the strapline “Your Move BMW”.

The response promoting the BMW M3 – a billboard three times the size and the strapline “Checkmate”.

Game over me thinks!