“Today I connected all the freckles on my arm with a Sharpie. It spells out RIKSHAZ9LIRK. Clearly I am The Chosen One.”

Though he just joined Twitter in late February after becoming unemployed and seemingly bored, Conan O’Brien is already up to 586,882 followers. He did not, however, follow anyone himself until this past Friday, March 5th when he tweeted: “I've decided to follow someone at random. She likes peanut butter and gummy dinosaurs. Sarah Killen, your life is about to change.”

Sure enough, Sarah Killen, or @LovelyButton, went from three followers to 17,343 as of today. A native of Michigan, Sarah has since become a celebrity in her own right. The best part? She is using her newfound fame for good. After receiving several thousand followers in the first few hours of becoming Conan’s only “Twitter pal,” Sarah quickly finished a fundraising page she had been working on for the 2010 Susan G. Komen Michigan 3-Day for the Cure, a 60-mile, three-day walk in August to raise money for breast cancer research. She plans to participate in the walk with her mother and fiancé as breast cancer runs in her family and the subject is close to her heart.

Sarah’s original fundraising goal was $1,000, but after linking the page from her Twitter, she surpassed this mark in record time she upped the ante to $5,000. And wouldn’t you know she’s already more than halfway there. Sarah summed up her reaction to the day that changed her life as such: “this is the most awesome day ever.”

This decision could not have come at a worse time for current Winter Olympians such as figure skater Evan Lysacek and bobsledder Steven Holcomb, both of whom won gold medals in their respective sports. Scandals aren’t the only thing keeping these athletes from gaining endorsements, though. It’s no surprise that winter sports just aren’t as marketable as mainstream sports. Evan and Steven are competing with the likes of Lebron James, Derek Jeter and Peyton Manning…and losing. Instead, they are turning to more innovative ways to make a buck, such as giving motivational speeches or writing a book. Many think it’s pretty safe to say that we won’t being seeing or hearing much from these Winter Olympians anytime soon, perhaps not even until the 2014 games.

     For one woman, that meant that her abusive ex-husband was able to read comments posted to her Reader, including comments she shared with her current boyfriend. Children who were too young for Facebook and used Google Chat to talk with their friends had their conversations exposed not only to their parents, but also to random strangers. Remember the plumber that you emailed last year to get a quote? He was now able to gain access to your pictures and status updates. What’s more, “turning off” Google Buzz only hid the tool, making it so that you could no longer see it when you signed in to your account. It still allowed those who still enabled it to continue following you. Not surprisingly, the privacy concerns mounted and Google’s credibility took a plunge. They knew they needed to take action. A few complaints to the FTC later, they did.  

     Four days after its February 9th launch, Google tweaked its new social media tool by adding privacy features to address the growing number of concerns, beginning with its auto-follow feature. Instead of automatically following everyone in your Gmail address book, Google Buzz now prompts you with a screen that lets you select who you’d like to follow. Google Reader and Picasa Web Albums now have to be manually added to your Google Buzz account, whereas they were automatically added before. Finally, there are now options that allow you to choose which information from your Gmail account you want to share and who you want to share it with, as well as an option to disable the feature completely.

     Many argue, though, that the damage is done and Google might have actually taken a step back instead of forward. Whether or not Google Buzz becomes “the next big thing” remains to be seen, as it’s now being treated with a fair sense of skepticism and the complaints are far from over. It will be interesting to see how Google handles this in the coming weeks. Are you using Google Buzz?

Plenty of buzz has been made about what social media tactics the Oscars will employ and much of it has already come to fruition, beginning with a new tagline that reads, “You’ve never seen Oscar like this.”  The Oscars’ next huge step came on February 2, when the Academy of Motion picture Arts and Sciences and ABC announced its full list of nominees live via their website, Oscars.org and their Facebook page complete with a livestream. Oscars.org was also spruced up making interaction key with widgets, videos and more content straight from the nominated stars themselves.

The final step? There’s an app for that! The Oscars unveiled its new application for the iPhone and iPod Touch just in time for this year’s show, and there is truly something for everyone. Users can get caught up on all the nominations by watching movie trailers on the Flixter app, follow all the fashion with the Style App, and learn Oscar-related trivia with the Movie Challenge Oscar Special App.  The Oscars iPhone App will also allow its users to make predictions and share them through Facebook, Twitter, text and email as well as release behind-the-scenes footage of rehearsals and preparations leading up to the show. Overall, it’s been a valiant effort for a show known for its orthodoxy. Whether or not this translates into more viewers and higher ratings remains to be seen, Will you be watching?

On a R&M-related note, our fabulous media buyer, Laura Patty, achieved her personal goal of finishing the Critz Tybee Half Marathon without stopping. Congrats!

The Funnys: Budweiser and Bud Light
Budweiser and Bud Light continued to impress with their campaigns. Expectations for their Super Bowl commercials are always very high and they did not disappoint this year. The Clydesdale horses seem to never get old and Budweiser does a great job of incorporating them in new, fresh fashions. The ad with the horse and cow as friends was clever and sweet, while their “Human Bridge” ad was over-the-top and very fun.

Bud Light had a few great ads last night but the one that really stood out to us was the “Lost” parody. The ad was tailored perfectly to the overwhelming buzz about the final season of Lost that premiered last week and was very funny while effectively getting across its message.


Doritos
Doritos also had a pretty great campaign highlighted by humor. The ad where the little boy slaps his mother’s date was priceless. Seeing a grown man get slapped by a child was shocking and hilarious in its delivery, yet simple enough to get the point across.

Kia Sorento
With so many car ads running during the Super Bowl, it’s difficult to make them unique and memorable. The ad for Kia Sorento did an outstanding job of being different from its competitors while being light-hearted and fun. The ad depicts a colorful cast of child’s toys that take a road trip in their Kia Sorento and the adventures that follow. It’s fun, comical and fits perfectly with their tagline “a departure from the expected.”

The Visually Appealing:

Coca Cola
This ad was definitely meant to be watched in HD. The ad depicts a man camping in Africa sleepwalking through the wilderness on his way to grab a Coke. The scene he passes as he’s sleepwalking is that of leopards, elephants, a hyena and even what appears to be a lake monster (whatever those are). Visually, the ad is stunning and just plain cool.

Vizio
Another favorite in the group, Vizio does an outstanding and innovative job of featuring its new television apps by using robotic arms to grab pop culture fads and combining them together to form one unique system. This ad plays perfectly to its audience, as all of the fads are very recognizable to the person who would be most likely to buy their product. It was very futuristic and visually fun.

The Emotion-Evoking:

Google
Who doesn’t want to fall in love in Paris after watching this ad? Google cleverly takes us through a person’s new life in Paris, France solely through his Google searches. In fact, that’s all the ad was - screen shots of various Google searches. The ad was so simple yet highly effective. It begins with the unidentified guy searching for local eateries and translations and takes him all the way through meeting a girl, getting married and finally having a baby. It probably cost very little to make, but it was very memorable.

The Politicals:

Focus on the Family
After all the angst and controversy, the most anticipated commercial of the Super Bowl, the Tim Tebow and mom spot, ended up being a light-hearted, non-assuming message sprinkled in with a little humor.

Audi
For all the attention that “going green” has received recently, it was nice to see a more light-hearted approach to a topic that is often considered so controversial. Audi highlighted its fuel-efficient A3 TDI by showing the extremes of environmentalism in a comical way with scenes of the Green Police arresting people for throwing away batteries and not using incandescent light bulbs. At a Green Police roadblock, Audi’s A3 TDI, which claims to get 42 mpg on the highway and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30%, passes the Green Police test with flying colors and is allowed to pass. 

The Losers:

GoDaddy.com
We get it. Sex sells. This ad was anything but innovative and unique and really had nothing to do with the product.

The Census Bureau
It’s understandable to want to use the Super Bowl as a platform to remind people just how important the 2010 Census is and encourage them to participate…this ad just didn’t do it. The message definitely got lost in the vague, confusing story that aired.

The race is this Saturday, February 6th. Good luck, Laura!