Here are some conversations that have been collected from twitter where big brands are monitoring the conversation and responding in real time to customer service issues.

Five years ago if your company had world class customer service that meant you had some good information on your website and customers could call your toll free number 24/7

Today? you can no longer afford to wait for customers to bring their complaints to you.  If you are waiting to solve problems you are losing customers. You must be proactive about listening to the conversations and responding in real time. Twitter is an amazing tool for this. Here are some awesome examples from big brands.

Let me just qualify that and say I am throwing in the big brands thing to show that this behavior is now mainstream not that you need a big budget.  We have clients doing this way better than the big boys with micro brands and micro budgets.  check out zarbees on twitter.

Chances are your company or cause is much smaller than these. Can you really afford not to be part of the conversation?

Their approach is all about demo. Nomis came up with Vanguards, which essentially are portable stores. They show up at soccer practices and let players try the shoes for themselves. The vans are driven by ex-players and coaches. Then “players use their body as the ultimate testing tool” to find the right shoe for them.

While their Vanguard idea is great, Nomis really differentiating themselves by treating their customers how the “other brands only treat their stars.” Each player can have personal time with professionals and find their perfect shoe. And now they have some online buzz to accompany their offline conversations.

Check it out.

It seems like we’ve been talking a lot about how car companies are promoting their new cars. It’s interesting to see how each company uniquely used social media in their ad campaigns.

Ford is doing their 6-month test-drive and asking their drivers to talk about their experiences on social networks. Honda created a blog for the new Insight in order to get consumer insights and share information. Now BMW has created a new integrated marketing campaign to promote the 2010 BMW Z4 Roadster that relies on both online and offline outlets.

The new ad campaign is called “Expression of Joy.” The campaign features a painting the size of 2 football fields created by artist Robin Rhode and filmmaker Jake Scott. The advertisements were filmed by Scott as Rhode drove two Z4s with paint jets mounted behind the wheels. Every angle and movement of the Z4 was captured by 45 cameras and used 160 liters of paint.

The 30-second spots from the footage captured by Scott can be seen on TV and online. There was a 30-minute doumentary about the creation of the ad was shown on Discovery HD Theater on May 10. BMW is the first to use MSN.com’s expandable video unit, which allows viewers to see the advertisements in full-screen mode. There will also be video banner ads on CNN, Yahoo, and other top websites. They’ve also made their own website for the new Z4 at  expressionofjoy.com.

“Expression of Joy” will also be seen in print, including an 8-page insert in Vanity Fair’s June issue, and outdoor advertisements.

“BMW Z4 – An Expression of Joy” is a game that has been developed for the iPhone and iPod Touch and has been available to download since May 10.

BMW has done a realy great job making not only making cool, chic advertisements – very BMW – but also developing a great integrated marketing campaign. I love that they made a game for the iPhone. It’s the perfect place to reach their market and there’s a good chance that everyone who downloads it will be totally addicted, like most other iPhone games.

While there are some great online aspects to the campaign, it would have been even better if they were utilizing social networks. It would have been so simple to integrate Twitter or Facebook into their campaign. This would have given them way more exposure. Maybe next time.

The ESPN-Youtube channel is now up and running. Not many people know about it, though. Probably because neither ESPN nor Youtube is promoting it yet.

There are high hopes for the new channel; the biggest sports network paired with the biggest online video sharing site. How could it go wrong? I’m just hoping they’ll start talking about it offline soon in order to get the huge audience they’re expecting.

Right now, the content is what you would expect. Just clips from Sports Center. Don’t get me wrong, that’s great stuff but ESPN has a great opportunity to target their superfan in more meaningful ways than with just sports clips they could see anyday on ESPN.

Everyone loves the Sports Center commentators and the funny commercials, which everyone talks about for years. They should use Youtube to give their fans exclusive access to ESPN commercials and behind-the-scenes footage of the sports casters.

If they are trying to get the attention of legit ESPN superfans, give them something unique and funny. Feed their appetite for signature ESPN humor.

Getting in trouble is nothing new for CP+B. Just a few months ago they were asked by Facebook to take down their “Whopper Sacrifice” application because it violated privacy policy. Most recently advocacy groups got in a huff about the “Spongebob” BK commercial. And then there was the “Whopper Virgins” campaign last December that was not very well received, but totally funny.

So what’s different this time? CP+B is actually altering their advertisement to comply with complaints, which will be the first time they are willingly making requested changes (Facebook forced them to shut down “Whopper Sacrifice”). But I guess when you degrade citizens and disprespect the national flag of a country, that just happens to be the second largest market besides the United States, something’s gotta give.

When I watched the commercial the first time, I didn’t see why anyone would find it offensive. I thought it was totally funny. Meaning that I am an insensitive jerk or I’m not Mexican – I’ll let you decide.  It reminded me of Nacho Libre and BrokeBack Mountain, which made me giggle. I thought the concept was clever and the copy was just cheesy enough. Who could be upset by that? Turns out a whole country.

Ambassador Jorge Zermeno wrote that the “advertisement denigrates the image of our country and uses improperly Mexico’s national flag.” He noted that Mexico has strict laws barring the defamation of the flag.

It wasn’t until I read this blog comment that I realized how serious this really was to people:

“And there’s something far worse, at least to anyone born and raised in Mexico, taught from a wee age that though there are few things genuinely sacred in life, one of those things is unquestionably the national flag. For better or worse, Mexicans have a thing about flags, and so…(here’s the part you gotta pay close attention to): In Mexico this “inoffensive” advert with the cute little wrestler and Texas cowboy would be in flagrant violation of federal law.”

In this case, it’s probably a good call that CP+B is changing their advertising in order to prevent any further offense. I’m thinking that this might also be the first time that CP+B wasn’t intentionally controversial. They’ve done some pretty crazy things in the past and not been bothered by negative feedback. I’m always impressed with how CP+B takes risks in their advertising despite criticism but I’m also impressed that they are willing to correct this mistake.