We recently helped Spitfire Ale launch a trade campaign called Operation Landlord. Spitfire wanted to give landlords not already stocking Spitfire on a regular basis, added reasons to do so. This first phase consists of a two-pronged attack: edgy, funny, point-of-sale, for deployment around pubs was sent to landlords, and an on-cask text-to-win prize draw has been created where landlords can win their rent paid for a year. The campaign was promoted via trade press advertising and a campaign website where landlords can request the POS to be sent to them. The  campaign is now nearly over and so far it has been a fantastic success with sales up around 15% year-on-year.

The new Spitfire Ale website went live today and we are all very excited about a new phase in the life of an iconic ale brand. The site is the culmination of many months of hard work both internally and collaboratively with our lovely clients at Shepherd Neame. The website is a showcase for Spitfire's enduringly popular campaign and has a range of features allowing visitors to download and share the dozens of classic ads from the last decade using social networking sites. Fans can also create their very own Spitfire ads to be showcased and ranked by their peers. The site contains a host of other humorous content, with an exclusive new two minute film ‘The Bottle of Britain' and links to World War 2 themed comedy clips and images from around the web. Take a look for yourself at www.spitfireale.co.uk/

This article on Advertising Age's website discusses how Starbucks has progressed it's social media strategy even further and started to cross the divide between Starbuck's physical and online environments. Chris Bruzzo, VP-brand content and online, says "that the company is benefitting from a trend toward this intersection between digital and physical. We're seeing the beginning of that," he said. "The experiences you have online can translate to rich offline experiences."

They are also doing loads of neat things with Facebook and iphone apps too. Read the full article here

Foursquare is a social media iPhone app that is both a location-based social network and a nightlife game that allows users to generate points for being the first to visit a new place, going out every night of the week, or for reviewing new clubs and restaurants.

I think this could be huge! See here for more details

The first augmented reality iPhone app has now arrived in the iTunes store, enabling users to visualise points of interest in their nearby environment. I wonder how long it will be before we see special offers bolted to the fast food brand signs you can see in the image image??? read more here