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?

Electronic Arts hired 20 people for the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles to stand outside the trade show and protest their new video game Dante’s Inferno.”

EA spokeswoman Holly Rockwood says the stunt was arranged by a viral marketing agency hired by EA. However, the “protest” was still covered by local newspapers and The LA Times.

The new game, Dante’s Inferno is loosely based on Dante Aligheri’s poem “Divine Comedy,” The fake protesters were “upset” about the game because it glorified eternal damnation. The protesters passed out pamphlets and held up picket signs saying “Hell is not a Video Game” and “Trade in Your PlayStation for a PrayStation.”

Some critics have been saying this might not have been the best move for EA. Why would you build negative buzz about your own product?

We think it was a perfect thing for EA. As people were walking into the trade show, they already had interest in the game. Not only that, they received free publicity in local newspapers, which then made it’s way onto the internet. And now that the coverage is on the internet, their clelver stunt will reach much farther than a trade show in LA.

You could also applaud EA for creating fake negative buzz themselves so nobody else can. Now that it’s already been done, no one would take real protesters seriously. Way to dodge that bullet, EA!

Gillette has been building buzz the last month with how-to online
videos. The videos show men how to shave everywhere except their face,
also known as “manscaping.”

There has been tons buzz around the videos. By last Friday, Gillette’s Youtube site had more than 300,000 views in about a month.

The videos are very clever and humorous, which is different from the
approach they usually take in their advertising and marketing. Each
light-hearted video shows a cartoon demonstrating how to manscape
different areas of the body.

Before the videos were posted, Gillette tested them on both men and
women with little negative feedback. Through their research, Gillette
also found that one-third of men shave hair from their body other than
their faces.

“Our goal was to engage guys in a dialogue on the whys and how-to’s, and to do it comfortably and reassure them in a funny and entertaining way,” said Tim Williams a Gillette marketing official.

I think Gillette did a really great job with these videos. Not only are
they funny and perfect to reach 20-something men, but there is actually
research to back their approach.

Although we can’t leave without saying that they are ripping off the Phillips Norelco Shave Everywhere site from a few years ago.

The real Slim Shady is back. We almost forgot all about Eminem and all his drama but now he’s releasing his first album in the last five years, “The Relapse.”

We all knew it would happen eventually but I wasn’t expecting Eminem to build buzz so well.  The marketing team at Aftermath/Interscope Records has created a cool campaign to reintroduce the hip-hop star. You can read about the full campaign here. It’s cool to see that Eminem is marketing his album the same way big studios market new movie releases.

So far, the campaign is working. Twitter has been their main online outlet so far and within the last couple days Tweeters have been going crazy for the new campaign. There has also been a major spike in Eminem Google searches, comparable to the Google inquiries for his 2004 album.

Here are the official stats so far:

“According to Compete, Eminem.com reached 113,868 unique visitors during April, while the most popular of his tweets — which linked to Therelapse.com on May 7 — reached at least 41,704 people within just one week, according to an analysis of data provided to Ad Age by Tweetreach.”

Not too shabby.

Going back to the Google trends, the spike at the very end of the graph is a result of the ticket giveaway for his Detroit show. So far, this has been the only giveaway in the campaign, which surprises me. That could be because I just read an article about how successful Radiohead’s name-your-own-price promotion was in 2007. Eminem’s market are those who are most likely to pirate music. The album has already been leaked online, so it would have made sense for Eminem to make his campaign cater to that audience. Considering the success of his past albums, doing something similar to Radiohead would have definitely been doable.

But you know what? I’m just glad Eminem is back and well, despite his stint with prescription drug abuse. And we’re glad to see him harnessing the power of social media.

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 opening weekend numbers for X-Men Origins: Wolverine …. $87 million

The opening weekend numbers for Star Trek ….. $76 million

After hearing all the great reviews and positive buzz about Star Trek, it would make sense for it to make more money at the box office. Despite the claim that the movie wasn’t just for Trekkies, Star Trek still couldn’t overcome the stigma associated with their niche market.

Wolverine still didn’t reach the $100 million expectation opening weekend, but $87 million isn’t too shabby considering all the negative buzz and bad reviews.

Now it’s official; Mutants beat Trekkies.

Recently Nielsen reported that about 60% of Twitter users do not return to the site after the first month. They said that with only a 40% retention rate, the site could not sustain itself. The funny this is despite the alleged low retention rate, you can’t go anywhere without hearing about Twitter.

While people were surprised and freaking out about Twitter’s low numbers, it seemed totally normal to me. I’d take 40% any day. I was sure that other social networks had similar retention rates. Turned out I was wrong. At this point, Facebook’s and Myspace’s retention rates were about double that of Twitter’s.

Then Brendan O’Connell brought up a good point:

@andybeal I don’t think Nielsen considered Twitter apps access http://bit.ly/TdT7r

I was sure this was going to clear up the whole mess. It made sense to me; my Twitter time is spent on Twhirl. I rarely log into Twitter anymore. It turns out that Nielsen hadn’t considered Twitter applications. Yes! Victory was mine!

However, my victory was short lived when Nielsen reported that with the outside Twitter applications, the retention rate was still about 40%.

So it turns out that all of my well-wishing for Twitter’s retention was in vain. However, I really don’t think they’re in trouble. Those who continue to use Twitter after the first month are those who are hopelessly addicted. They don’t know why they are there or why they feel the need to update people on everything they’re doing, but it must be done. I have a feeling those fans aren’t going to peace-out any time soon.

I mentioned that Twitter had about half the retention rate of Facebook and Myspace. Here’s the thing, Facebook and Myspace are the most successful social networks ever. It’s actually amazing that Twitter is able to have the amount of repeat users as it does. So I don’t think we should be sending our condolences to Twitter for their small numbers; we should be congratulating them for their success.

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• Proof That Nielsen is Wrong; Twitter’s Retention Rate is Not 40% (marketingpilgrim.com)

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.

Bad news for Domino’s. Look at what happens when you hire teenage boys who know about Youtube! Yep, they make stupid videos. It’s a risk that every fast-food company takes when they hire adolescents. Too bad that this video really screwed with Domino’s brand.

If you haven’t heard, two employees of Domino’s – now former employees – made a Youtube where they did inappropriate and disgusting things to the food before boxing it up. The video ended up getting crazy popular and had more than a million views within 24 hours. The video has since been taken off Youtube by Domino’s.

Had the video been positive, that amount of buzz in such a short amount of time would have been amazing for Domino’s. But alas, it was really bad.

The Youtube video and the buzz it created on other social networks had the capacity to kill the brand. But Domino’s acted quickl enough to prevent any further damage to the company.

Patrick Doyle, CEO of Domino’s Pizza USA, created his own Youtube video to respond to the concerns created by the previous video. His video showed sincerity and concern for Domino’s customers and assured everyone that everything is being done to prevent that kind of behavior from being repeated. The store where the video was shot has actually been shut down and undergoing intense cleaning. There is also an investigation to see if this kind of behavior is taking place in other stores.

Domino’s reacted well to a bad situation and have taken the first step to regaining customer trust. However, in true Buzz.io fashion, we must point out that this situation didn’t need to be nearly as damaging to their brand. If they had already set up social network accounts, especially Twitter, they would have known about the video almost instantly and would have been able to take the video down before more than a million people saw it.

Pizza Hut, knowing that they hire people of the same caliber as Domino’s, have already created a new position in their company – the “twintern”. The twintern’s purpose is to be the voice of Pizza Hut on social networks. Luckily they are learning from Domino’s mistakes.

To Domino’s credit, they have set up a Twitter account since the incident. Too bad they didn’t think of that last week.