Here’s an interesting case study in crowdsourced social media branding: Weight Watchers, which faced some PR challenges when its spokeswoman Jessica Simpson got pregnant in the middle of her contract, found its newest celebrity backer via Twitter search!

The company’s social media team noticed that comedienne Ana Gasteyer had been tweeting about her weight loss experience and brought her feed to executives’ attention. They quickly moved in to secure her as a spokesperson — and now she’s created a series of TV and online ads set to debut this month. We can see why they’d be interested after reading tweets like these:

Hey @weightwatchers Volunteered to churn butter at Pioneer Day/30 min Sat How many #activitypoints? Need tocover 11flapjacks/8 biscuits

— Ana Gasteyer (@AnaGasteyer) January 12, 2013

Hey @weightwatchers I binged on Children’s Gummy Vites can it be my cheat day?

— Ana Gasteyer (@AnaGasteyer) December 10, 2012

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You know, we really don’t care whether this promo campaign qualifies as PR or marketing. It’s just really cool. The UK-based Arc firm (part of the Leo Burnett Group) came up with a unique way to promote online tutoring company The Tutor Crowd: create a tumblr page all about spellchecking London street graffiti! Here are some samples:

The idea is that parents will see the stickers around town and get the impression that The Tutor Crowd is a little hipper (and therefore more effective) than other educational services companies. There’s more on the page itself (warning: some of the language in the original tags is NSFW). We wish we’d come up with this one.

Yeah, so yesterday Bud Light made an earnest attempt to ride the “marriage equality viral avatar” train by posting this image for its 5,600,000 Facebook fans:

This infographic proves that yuppies and hipsters like the cheap stuff just as much as stereotypical rednecks (and as real-life rednecks we resent the implication that Bud Light drinkers are anti-gay). So while we have little doubt that this image inspired many Bud lovers to do a double take, we can’t imagine it led too many people to “unlike” the page.

What do we think of it from a brand perspective? Quick, clever stunt or shameless meme-jacking? Is there a difference?

If you haven’t seen the photo to the left, it’s a safe bet you haven’t been on Facebook in the past 24 hours.

The Human Rights Campaign’s drive for marriage equality has taken social media by storm as the Supreme Court hears arguments in the Proposition 8 case. The social campaign launched around 1 p.m. EST Monday afternoon, when the organization changed its Facebook profile picture to the logo at left.

So what was this all about? “Red is a symbol for love, and that’s what marriage is all about,” HRC spokesperson Charlie Joughin told MSNBC.com on Tuesday. “We wanted to give people an opportunity to show their support for marriage equality in a public and visible way.”

Even if you failed to log into Facebook, celebrities and politicians alike made sure their Twitter followers knew all about the campaign:

Use this photo for your profile pics this week in support of marriage equality during these very… instagram.com/p/XVCe0XRsXT/

— Lance Bass (@LanceBass) March 26, 2013

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We can’t imagine the advertising geniuses at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce making a rookie mistake like this.

Fans of Mad Men are undoubtedly familiar with the famous opening credit sequence in which a faceless, suit-clad man falls from a skyscraper in slow motion, passing period-relevant ads on his way down. With the show’s commitment to genuine historical accuracy, it’s no surprise that the images featured in this opening sequence are from real print ads.

No surprise, that is, unless you’re Gita Hall May, the model whose face has appeared at the start of every episode since the show’s 2007 debut without her knowledge or, allegedly, her consent.

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We in PR know that bad publicity almost never doubles as good publicity, but exceptions do stand out. Accused/acquitted/accused again murderer Amanda Knox, for example, got $4 million to write a book despite the fact that — according to The Daily Beast, at least — she has “already lost” in the court of public opinion and can never again “control how she is seen.” (And yes, her family did hire a PR firm to manage her image.)

Today brings news that Italy’s top court has ordered a retrial for Knox, who was acquitted and freed after serving nearly four years in prison for the murder of her roommate in Italy (but you already knew that). Our point? This new twist is just icing on the cake for a story that will continue attract millions of eyes around the world.

We’re not too familiar with the details of this case, but we know that Knox is media gold: last month Diane Sawyer scored her first official promo interview and even that announcement was big news. It’s set to air on April 30, the same day the memoir hits shelves — and everyone will be covering it, because the public loves both train wrecks and apology tours (unless they involve Lance Armstrong).

The question: if you have a client like Knox, how do you play off her notoriety while insisting that she was innocent all along?

Those of us who work in the PR field often eschew political debates, but it is in fact our job to address issues hinging on public perception. Americans’ evolving opinions regarding marijuana and its role in our economy has now reached Wall Street, which means the buzz on Main Street is all about weed, too. (We’ve all learned the hard way how closely the two streets are linked.)

Though marijuana remains illegal under federal law, Colorado and Washington both legalized it for recreational use in November — and Maryland looks likely to follow. Much of the public believes that the legality of marijuana is inevitable — and because we live in a “representative democracy”, there is a chance that policy changes will (gradually) mirror the public’s evolving attitudes.

We also live in a capitalistic society, so everyone from investors and purveyors to distributors and consumers envisions an emerging multi-billion dollar industry as weed goes mainstream. The process will be contentious: Americans have always had a complicated relationship with our vices (just as individuals do), and we will have to find an uneasy middle ground between personal freedom and national/economic interests regarding the green stuff just like we did during the 1933 repeal of prohibition and the push for modern tobacco regulations.

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We don’t know if you guys are crazy excited about the third-season premier of HBO‘s mega-hit Game of Thrones, which is less than a week away — but we are!

You may have heard earlier this year (or in 2011 via our sister site AgencySpy) about how GoT‘s marketing/PR teams are absolutely the best, but we’d like to take a moment to remind you why that’s true (and encourage you to check out this awesome print ad one more time). This year the GoT folks followed up on their promo winning streak and even took it up a notch by sending customized “kits” to various celebrities, aka “opinion leaders”, each of whom seemed to follow up by hyping the show on social:

Guess who’s the new Mother of Dragons! #GameOfThrones (hint: it’s me!) twitter.com/StephenAtHome/…

— Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) March 22, 2013

We’re not sure what’s in these boxes besides Season 1 and 2 DVDs and some other assorted goodies, but does that even matter? And have you checked out the totally awesome Join the Realm site, where you can create your own family arms?

Here’s the lesson of this story:

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Back in October (when this PRNewser writer dressed as Flo for Halloween), we discussed the popularity of brand mascots like Progressive‘s Flo, Allstate‘s Mayhem and the GEICO Gecko — and what it means for a company when a character created solely for the purpose of selling a product becomes something of a pop culture icon.

Relevant research at the time indicated that, while the public’s love for these quirky insurance pushers undoubtedly helped bring some personality to an otherwise drab product, it didn’t necessarily always correlate with sales.

Now, thanks to a revealing interview in AdAge, we’ve learned that there may be a more direct correlation between the Gecko and his company’s sales. The spokes-lizard was never intended to be the longstanding fixture he has become. But, as GEICO CMO Ted Ward explains in the interview, the ever-improving marketing tool known as data analytics made it clear that The Gecko was making an impact:

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We didn’t see the new Halle Berry thriller The Call this weekend, but your former editor Tonya Garcia and our current colleague Donya Blaze did — and this morning they alerted us to a case of product placement that somehow doubles as a big old PR fail for the makers of the “prepaid” TracFone (anyone who’s seen The Wire knows what we’re talking about here).

Berry stars as a 911 operator/professional perm model tasked with saving a kidnapped teenager from a serial killer. The victim calls Berry from the killer’s trunk but cannot give her location. More importantly, emergency dispatchers are unable track her because she’s using a “disposable”, untraceable prepaid cell phone which happens to be clearly marked with the logo of its maker, TracFone. It’s a nice plot twist, but there are a couple of problems: first, it’s fiction; second, it doesn’t reflect very well on the brand.

Being media-savvy professionals, Tonya and Donya immediately recognized the bad PR and let the world know on Twitter:

Just saw “The Call.” Quoting @donyablaze: “This is a PR fail for Tracfone.” LOL. Yes indeed.

— Tonya Garcia (@tgarcianyc) March 25, 2013

TracPhone’s media team quickly responded to clarify that its phones are, in fact, traceable and serial killer-proof:

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