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Snack Brand Popchips Hires Ashton Kutcher as Social Media Lead, Paves Way for New Era of Celebrity Brand Leadership

Just the other week, Popchips Inc. hired actor and twitter master Ashton Kutcher as their new social media lead/ “President of Pop Culture.”  For those of you who have yet to hear of this company, Popchips Inc. is an emerging potato chip company that differentiates itself from competitors by offering chips that are “popped” (not fried or baked).

Although this announcement may come as a surprise to most (let’s be honest, what other social media experience does Kutcher really have other than providing the world with his daily overindulgent twitter posts?), Popchips is joining the list of companies who have chosen to utilize celebrity names as not just the face of their brand, but as the brains behind it.

Now, Kutcher will be tasked to help lead the emerging brand’s social media marketing efforts, and I must admit — I am interested to see what he has up his sleeve.  So far, since his first week as president of pop culture, Kutcher has posted several tweets from his personal twitter account about this announcement, as well as a picture of his tour at the Popchip factory in San Francisco.

Although this may seem minimal for now, with over five million followers to his name (more than both Oprah and Barack Obama), these tweets certainly do not fall onto deaf ears.  Since the announcement from his twitter account, the twitterverse has been flooded with users asking what are these chips that @aplusk is raving about and where can they get them.

Additionally, the company has scored major media placements in both The Wall Street Journal and New York Magazine with this announcement, which has helped to at least create some serious immediate attention around the brand; whether or not they agree or disagree with Kutcher’s new role, people are certainly talking about the company.

Kutcher’s new role is just the latest announcement of celebrities being chosen as not just brand ambassadors, but as key integral members of a company.  For example, earlier this year Polaroid named Lady Gaga as their chief creative officer, while Sarah Jessica Parker was also recently named chief creative officer of the fashion brand Halston.

In today’s society, it is a becoming a sometimes troubling, yet true reality, that celebrities are shaping the world that we live in.  They’re impacting what we buy, what we eat, who we vote for, and so on and so on. People are listening to what they say and following what they do, and companies are capitalizing on this.

Take for example, twitter.  Does anyone think it would be where it is today without its major celebrity players of Ashton Kutcher, Oprah, Lady Gaga, Ellen DeGeneres, Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian and John Mayer?  It is certainly no coincidence that the top 10 most followed twitter users are all celebrities.

So with Kutcher’s first week under his belt he has received great feedback from the brand’s loyal facebook and twitter fans, but has also already been facing some harsh criticism from experts.  New York Magazine’s Daily Intel posted,

“When Ben Bernanke said the recession was over September of last year, we were skeptical.  Only now that a celebrity who has risen to prominence doing mostly nothing is onboard to promote a product that is made of mostly air by doing basically nothing, do we truly feel that everything is going to be all right.”

I personally must admit I am quite curious to see what happens in the upcoming weeks and will keep my eye out for Popchips’ new social media strategies.  Although the terms of the deal remain sealed, I think we all must admit that regardless of what Kutcher does from here on out, Popchips has certainly emerged as a brand that has gotten people’s attention.

Photos: Popchips; Ashton Kutcher --Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images via Picapp.com

“Sorry, Twitter is Over Capacity.”

Since the commencement of the World Cup, the Web has been saturated with the likes of Cristiano Rinaldo, Kaka, Wayne Rooney, and the rest of Fifa’s stars.  From Facebook fan pages, to Twitter accounts, to mobile apps, and YouTube, there has been an unparalleled amount of World Cup social media initiatives, hence, the maddening sight of the Twitter Fail Whale.

Some players, like those of Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Holland, Germany, Argentina, and England, were forbidden to tweet, like, or check in with any social media tools. Some coaches, like Marcelo Biesela of Chile, even established a social networking curfew for their players, but that never hindered the explosion of social media in the 2010 World Cup.

Every single website that simply mentioned the competition had anything from online news to blogs, forums, and embedded videos. CNN teamed up with the social networking game Foursquare to create “World Cup Badges” for their avid users (check out Cercone Brown & Co.’s Tool Time to learn the ins and outs of Foursquare).   With this nimble collaboration, people from the 32 competing nations could connect while watching the matches.  Fans that traveled to South Africa to watch the games received the “South Africa Explorer” badge, and people that watched from bars, pubs, and public viewing parties received the “Super Fan” badge.

Aside from social networking tools, YouTube presumably played a part in this social media roar.  Nike’s World Cup ad video “Write the Future,” which featured some of the world’s top football players, flared up to an astounding 18.8 million+ views.  Some of the 33,487 comments about the viral video include, “Incredible!” “Brilliant!” and “I’d still love Rooney if he had a bigass beard.”  Other World Cup ads that rocked YouTube are the Shakira official World Cup song with over six million views, the adidas Star Wars ad with almost three million views, and the Pepsi and Optus ads with a combined number of one million views.

Not only did this social media evolution allow football’s best to interact with their fans, but it also allowed more businesses to join the unfolding of the future of marketing.  For example, Visa decided to utilize social media instead of traditional advertising by launching a campaign that generated a profusion of responses.  The credit card provider recently reported that at the end of June, its first-ever Fifa-themed global marketing campaign, “Go Fans,” reached 5.6 million views on YouTube.  The second component of their campaign, “Visa Match Planner,” was downloaded by well over 53,000 fans on Facebook.

It seems as if more businesses are catching on to this phenomenon.  Let the social media evolution continue…

There are so many PR, advertising and social media tools that it can make your head spin!  We help you sort it all out with our “Tool Time” column, which breaks down the most useful resources around.

Mashable

What it is:

Mashable is an up-to-the-minute social and digital media news website focusing on Web news, trends, analysis on products and applications, and much more. Founded in 2005 by Pete Cashmore, Mashable has turned into one of the most influential blogs in the world.

How it works:

Mashable is constantly being updated with news from around the Web.  The website is split into different sections including: Social Media, Business, Entertainment, Tech, Web Video, Development & Design, Apple, Mobile, and Battles (the comparison of two products/websites, e.g., Youtube vs. Hulu).  All stories and news are written in blog form.  You can also share these stories on Twitter and Facebook through the “like” button.

Who it’s good for:

Mashable is a rich source of social and digital media news.  The website is good for people who are in public relations, advertising, marketing,  Web 2.0 professionals, technology journalists, entrepreneurs, brands and corporations.  Mashable is also very influential on Facebook, Twitter, and numerous blogs, which cite content from the original source.

Where to find it:

You can check out Mashable at www.Mashable.com , http://twitter.com/mashable, http://www.facebook.com/mashable

Boston PR agency Cercone Brown & Co. takes you through terms like crowdsourcing and RSS in this week’s edition of the Social Media Glossary.

There are so many PR, advertising and social media tools that it can make your head spin!  We help you sort it all out with our “Tool Time” column, which breaks down the most useful resources around.

Facebook Ads

What it is:

Facebook Ads are images and text-based advertisements on the right hand side of the Facebook website. Multiple ads run simultaneously and target specific demographics through the many options Facebook provides. These Ads can direct you to fan pages, websites, coupons, and direct sales. Different from other advertising platforms, Facebook is great for building ongoing relationships with your customers since it’s a platform that so many people use.

How it works:

In three easy steps, you can be off and running with your own Facebook ad. The first step is creating the ad. You do this by creating a title that is less than 25 characters long, adding a picture, and then adding your body of text, which can be a maximum of 135 characters. The second step is to select your intended audience.  Facebook has 11 targeting options that include location, age, birthday, gender, keywords, education, workplaces, relationship status, interests, languages, and connections. Making sure your ad reaches the right people is key to your advertising success. The third step is setting up how you want to pay for running the ad. There are two ways. The first is Cost-Per-Click (CPC), which means you get charged each time someone clicks on your ad. The other is Cost-Per-Mille (CPM) which stands for cost per thousand impressions, meaning you purchase advertising based on what it costs to show the ad to one thousand viewers. The minimum cost for a running ad is $1 per day.

Once you have successfully created the ad you can track your progress, see who is clicking on the ad, and make changes to maximize your results.

Who it’s good for:

Facebook advertising is good for any type of business, both big and small. With more than 400 million active Facebook users and the targeting options Facebook provides, you can easily advertise to your audience at an affordable price.

Where to get started:

Check out how to jumpstart your Facebook ads at www.facebook.com/Ads.

Nike proves if you “just do it” creatively, you can stretch your advertising dollars.

In this week’s edition of Cercone Brown & Co.’s social media glossary, we take a look at terms that do everything from inform you about exclusive sales to mark your favorite stomping grounds.

Boston PR Agency Cercone Brown & Co. breaks down the benefits of professional social network LinkedIn with this week’s Tool Time.

Cercone Brown & Co.’s social media glossary defines the ins and outs of social media jargon.