A Little Plaid Goes a Long Way

Send to Kindle
August 5, 2008
I'm a little late with this post (as I am with a number of posts - I apologize for that; my life is getting back on track after the move to Michigan). But it's something I wanted to bring to your attention.

As I mentioned in April, the team at Plaid was planning their 2nd annual cross-country trip, heralded as Plaid Nation. Done with their usual style of humor and irreverence, this is a social-media-meets-face-to-face campaign that's worth noting.


If you're not familiar with what Plaid Nation is, it's 5 people from Plaid (an ultra cool and fantastic agency to work with - I had the pleasure of doing business with them when I was at crayon) who for the past two years have decided to do a road tour to meet people and build their brand. In the process they've secured a client or two and have impressed all sorts of people along the way.

While last year's goodwill tour was based on the east coast, this time around, the Plaidish opted for the west coast. In their Econoline van (hey - a Ford product! Cool.) wrapped in the Plaid colors, the team went from Vancouver to Vegas with many stops along the way in just 10 days. From Seesmic to Scoble and Twitter to Zappos, they visited many of the hot companies on every tech geek's short list. Not to be outdone, they had some fun with more of the tried and true, like Jones Soda and Sony Pictures. They even managed to have a run-in with the Canadian authorities.

One of my favorite aspects of this tour was the completely integrated way they treated it: from face-to-face interactions to full online access, the Plaid Nation tour was awash in social media goodness. The the web site. It consisted of:
  • An interactive Google map, where the team tracked their progress
  • A blog
  • A Twitter account
  • Opportunity to IM the van
  • Three mounted van cams that streamed live video
  • Dedicated channels on Vimeo and Ustream with scheduled live and archived materials
  • A facebook page
  • An updated schedule and Tweetup opportunities
  • Flickr photos


Not to mention the really cool, retro chic design they gave the site. It made me feel like I was on the stops along the way with them.

Even though the trip is over, the material that remains behind is still worth checking out. These guys clearly had a lot of fun and were very generous with their experience throughout. Way to go, Plaid!


Plaid Nation Tour - July 21, 2008 from Plaid Nation on Vimeo.

Labels: , ,

Posted by Scott Monty at 6:37 AM
 Comments |  LINKS TO THIS POST |




 Comments:

blog comments powered by Disqus

Home

About Scott

For hi-res, click here
Ranked by Forbes as one of the top 10 influencers in social media, he has been called "an unstoppable force of nature," "the best corporate social media lead on the planet," and Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, called him "a visionary."

At Ford, Scott heads up the social media function and holds the title Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager. He is a strategic advisor on all social media activities across the company, from blogger relations to marketing support, customer service to internal communications and more, as social media is being integrated into many facets of Ford business.


Prior to joining Ford, Scott served as Consigliere for crayon and spent a number of years with PJA Advertising + Marketing, a boutique BtoB agency specializing in health sciences & high tech.

In addition to his professional responsibilities, Scott is an active blogger and podcaster. He writes about the intersection of advertising, marketing and PR at The Social Media Marketing Blog and also writes The Baker Street Blog and cohosts I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, two literary undertakings. Scott has been featured in hundreds of news and business publications in print and on the web, in nearly dozens of books, and on a variety of mainstream media, including NBC, NPR, CNN and The Wall Street Journal. Scott is a recognized thought leader in the social media industry and frequently speaks at industry events.

Scott received his Master's in Medical Science from Boston University's School of Medicine concurrently with his MBA from BU's Graduate School of Management. He lives in the greater Detroit area with his wife and two young sons, golfs all too infrequently, and has a hidden talent for voice over work.

Oh, and one last little-known fact: Scott coined the Oxford Dictionary of English-accepted term "tweetup."

You may download a headshot here, courtesy of Rosh Sillars; a PDF version of Scott's bio is here .


Books in which Scott or his work is featured:

Disclosures/Relationships

Scott Monty Bio

Speaking Events

Keynote at Social Media Week NYC

Scott speaks on social media at events, seminars and conferences around the world. His topic generally focuses on corporate use of social media, becoming an online spokesperson, and specifically on the progress that Ford has made in the recent past. If you're interested in booking Scott to speak at your event, please click here to submit a speaking request for Ford-related purposes or email me at speaking [AT] this site's URL (if you know what I mean) to send a general email request.. Scott's bio and headshot can be found in the "About Scott" tab above.



What I like


TOOLS

  Trailfire
  MOO
  CrazyEgg
  ShareThis
  StumbleUpon
  Twitter
  Jott

The Webware 100 for 2008

BLOGS

 

Podcasts

For Immediate Release
HBR IdeaCast
Knowledge@Wharton
Manager Tools
Managing the Gray
Marketing Edge
Marketing Over Coffee
Six Pixels of Separation
TrafCom News Podcast
Online Marketing with RSS Ray

Contact Scott





  Facebook

  Twitter


Who is Scott Monty?

Hi, I'm Scott. I'm the global head of social media for Ford Motor Company. This is my personal blog, where I share my perspectives on social media - the convergence of marketing, advertising and PR on the Web - for marketers, agencies, the enterprise and the individual. This blog contains my personal views. My bio is available here and my headshots can be found here.

Subscribe


BY RSS BY EMAIL







Search

+ 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 + 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006 + 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 + 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006 + 11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006 + 12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007 + 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007 + 02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007 + 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007 + 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007 + 05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007 + 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007 + 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007 + 08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007 + 09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007 + 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 + 11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007 + 12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008 + 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 + 02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008 + 03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008 + 04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008 + 05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008 + 06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008 + 07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008 + 08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008 + 09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008 + 10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008 + 11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008 + 12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009 + 01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009 + 02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009 + 03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009 + 04/01/2009 - 05/01/2009 + 05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009 + 06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009 + 07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009 + 08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009 + 09/01/2009 - 10/01/2009 + 10/01/2009 - 11/01/2009 + 11/01/2009 - 12/01/2009 + 12/01/2009 - 01/01/2010 + 01/01/2010 - 02/01/2010 + 02/01/2010 - 03/01/2010 + 03/01/2010 - 04/01/2010 + 04/01/2010 - 05/01/2010 + 05/01/2010 - 06/01/2010 + 06/01/2010 - 07/01/2010 + 07/01/2010 - 08/01/2010 + 08/01/2010 - 09/01/2010 + 09/01/2010 - 10/01/2010 + 10/01/2010 - 11/01/2010 + 11/01/2010 - 12/01/2010 + 12/01/2010 - 01/01/2011 + 01/01/2011 - 02/01/2011 + 02/01/2011 - 03/01/2011 + 03/01/2011 - 04/01/2011 + 04/01/2011 - 05/01/2011 + 05/01/2011 - 06/01/2011 + 06/01/2011 - 07/01/2011 + 07/01/2011 - 08/01/2011 + 09/01/2011 - 10/01/2011 + 10/01/2011 - 11/01/2011 + 11/01/2011 - 12/01/2011 + 12/01/2011 - 01/01/2012 + 01/01/2012 - 02/01/2012 + 02/01/2012 - 03/01/2012 + 04/01/2012 - 05/01/2012 + 06/01/2012 - 07/01/2012 + 07/01/2012 - 08/01/2012 + 08/01/2012 - 09/01/2012 + 10/01/2012 - 11/01/2012 + 11/01/2012 - 12/01/2012 + 12/01/2012 - 01/01/2013 + 02/01/2013 - 03/01/2013 + 03/01/2013 - 04/01/2013 + 04/01/2013 - 05/01/2013 + 05/01/2013 - 06/01/2013

Sponsors




 





Need Voice Over Help?
I'm Not Just a Pretty Face


Link for sharing: http://bit.ly/MontyDemo



 

Scott's Shared Items


Copyright, etc.


Creative Commons License
The Social Media Marketing Blog by Scott Monty is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.