Given the recent environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, this particular image struck a chord with us. Used as part of a Humble campaign back in the 1960s, the oil company openly boasts about its ability to melt a glacier! The accompanying text reads as follows:

“EACH DAY HUMBLE SUPPLIES ENOUGH ENERGY TO MELT 7 MILLION TONS OF GLACIER!

This giant glacier has remained unmelted for centuries. Yet, the petroleum energy Humble supplies- if converted into heat- could melt it at the rate of 80 tons each second! To meet the nation’s growing needs for energy, Humble has applied science to nature’s resources to become America’s Leading Energy Company. Working wonders with oil through research, Humble provides energy in many forms- to help heat our homes, power our transportation, and to furnish industry with a great variety of versatile chemicals. Stop at a Humble station for new Enco Extra gasoline, and see why the “Happy Motoring” sign is the World’s First Choice!

For those of you who have been stuck in airports, forced to cancel trips or recently found yourself making 24 hour + trips when they could have taken four, we’re sorry. Plume activity has generally proven to be quite the inconvenience, but with every storm, there’s a silver lining….

Kudos to all the marketers who reacted with meaningful initiatives to help stranded travellers. Our favourites:

• Lonely Planet’s Free Download of iPhone City Guides to Major Affected Destinations (App usually costs €10)
• O2′s Free Texts Home for Stranded Travellers

What’s clever about these? The number of people to actually download the apps or engage in text messaging abroad has probably been quite small in the bigger picture marketing spend. However, such offers have resulted in positive online PR and have undoubtedly helped both brands improve their online perception as brands that care AND deliver when the going gets tough (or hot and ashy).

The cynics amongst us are sure to condemn such marketing activity as quick fire self promotion on the back of adversity, but you can’t fail them for responding to real consumer need.

Here’s to real-time helpful digital solutions in times of genuine need.

Ireland’s Digital Media Future by Minister Eamon Ryan. from Cybercom on Vimeo.

Cybercom’s insights from the 2010 National Digital Media & Marketing Summit. from Cybercom on Vimeo.

Cybercom is excited to be appointing a full-time ‘Digital PR & Communities Manager’. This is a fantastic role and there aren’t too many better roles in Dublin right now! We’re expecting a great response so please let us know ASAP if you’re interested. Check out more about the position here.

While it may be old hat in the US that sports franchises ban their players and coaches from using Social Media platforms, it now seems that the UK is following suit. Last week Manchester United announced that it had banned its players from using social networking sites. With immediate effect this saw the closure of Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs Twitter accounts.

The official Manchester United statement that was posted to their site read:”The club wishes to make it clear that no Manchester United players maintain personal profiles on social networking websites. Fans encountering any web pages purporting to be written by United players should treat them with extreme scepticism. Any official news relating to Manchester United or its players will be communicated via ManUtd.com.”

Many US Football and Soccer clubs have introduced similar bans as far back as May of last year. The general reasoning being given that unguided and unapproved commentary on the clubs or club’s management, were undermining the authority of those in charge to conduct their business. With clubs trying to closely manage their communications with their stars, their fans and other third parties such as rival clubs or sponsors, comments made on the spur of the moment were leading to sensitive informations leaking into the public domain.

A prime example from the beginning of the week was Liverpool‘s Ryan Babel, who complained on Twitter about a potential loan agreement that would see him going to Sunderland. In a series of tweets, he wrote: “The boss left me out the squad. No explanation. I never had a fight with the manager. I always kept quiet. Where did it go wrong? You have people who support me and don’t support me and one day, you will see what I’m capable of. Will it be at LFC or somewhere else – I have faith.”

While it may seem that banning the use of Social Media platforms is a very harsh step to take, it is understandable. If professional athletes were writing to newspapers and discussing their clubs business there would be no question that they would be in the wrong. However, you’d imagine that there must be some degree of trust that can be placed on these professionals? Would it not be enough to just heed a few simple rules? We always find that the best advice when it comes to Social Media is to consider this before you hit ‘post’: would you be happy to have your mum, your partner, your future children and your boss, read what you just wrote. If you can safely say ‘yes’ then you should be fine.

Little did two Domino’s employees realise that when they filmed a prank in the kitchen of their franchise  and posted it online that it would spark such a catastrophic response. The employees, who posted a clip of them contaminating a tray of prepared sandwiches with nasal mucus on You Tube, now face criminal charges and unemployment, while the Domino’s brand faced a PR crisis.

This is a great example of how social media now has the reach and speed to turn tiny incidents into crises. The offending video was viewed over a million times on You Tube over a two day period before being removed, while discussions spread throughout Twitter from concerned consumers seeking a brand response.

Initially Domino’s opted for a non-aggressive response, hoping the controversy would simply disappear, but as it continued to escalate they were quick to act and, within two days of the controversy emerging, they had created a Twitter account to address concerned consumer comments  and they presented their US President, Patrick Doyle, in a video response on YouTube.

The initial non-response of the brand failed to take into account the far reaching mushroom effect of a viral sensation and a strong demand from social active consumers to know specifically what was being done. However their fast acting recovery is quite impressive. The video by the company president now ranks as the top video for brand searches. The Twitter account has acquired over 1,200 followers in less than a week and is now an active community for the brand, whom are using this new channel to create individual conversations with their consumers.

And within the search engines, the Domino president’s YouTube apology now sits above the offending clip!

Photo courtesy of Daniel Jordan

For anybody looking to check out the highlights of this years Irish St Patrick’s Festival, the St Patrick’s Festival Photo Competition is a must. Our good friends over at Pix.ie have been working with the organisers of the Irish St Patrick’s Festival on a project aimed to allow festival goers share their unique perspective with people all over the world. With over 2,800 fantastic photo’s already posted, this is looking to be a great success. Yesterday GUINNESS STOREHOUSE® invited 250 Pixie users, bloggers and photobloggers to finish of the day’s Pixie Party at the GUINNESS STOREHOUSE®.

Ryanair has been the talk of the town within the online community this week and it’s not for the better. Online PR and reputation management have struggled to play an important role at Ryanair, but over the last week we have been fascinated by their ability to make a bad situation worse!

Dublin-based Web developer Jason Roe was booking plane tickets online when he discovered what he thought was a glitch that allowed him to book free Ryanair tickets. So he blogged and twittered about it. 

Among the responses on his site were 3 from Ryanair staff. One read: “You’re an idiot and a liar!! fact is! (sic) you’ve opened one session then another and requested a page meant for a different session, you are so stupid you dont even know how you did it!”

Another said: “Website is not perfect, Life is not perfect… (sic) If you would work in your pathetic life on a such big project in a such busy environment with so little resources, you would know that the most important is to have usual user behavior scenarios working rather than spending time on improbable and harmless things.”

Ryanair later confirmed that their staff did indeed make contact. “Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion,” said the airline’s spokesman Stephen McNamara. “It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy in corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again. Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy…”

The story has become so popular that Jason’s site now appears in 4th position on Google for the search term ‘Ryanair’. A great example of search, social media and online PR coming together, this will be a case study for years to come!

As integrated email, GPS, camera, Internet and MP3 player become the standard on mobile phones, those great people in Nova Scotia have developed a device where you can get everything you want in one place. Introducing the ultimate ‘all-in-one’ phone, where no phone has gone before, the Pomegranate NS08!

This phone combines all the aforementioned features plus a coffee brewer, shaver and a harmonica – all aimed to enhance parts of your working day! Now if only there was a place where you could get everything you want?!