Twitter, the pioneering micro-blogging service, allows people to send and receive real-time updates (called “tweets”) about the little things in life happening between blog posts and e-mails – each limited to 140 characters. These “tweets” can be viewed by whoever opts to “follow” you, and can be sent, received and updated in real time via your Web browser, SMS, RSS, instant messaging and e-mail.

Global visitors to Twitter grew almost fivefold to 5.6 million in September from a year ago. With so many people trying to stay connected and living their daily lives out loud, it’s easy to see why brands are intrigued by the opportunities to listen to, learn from, or even communicate directly with their audiences.

Most brands are still quite cautious about how to approach a social network like Twitter where the standard rules of engagement don’t apply, but some brands willing to take the risk are finding a great deal of reward in this new way to help build more personal relationships, 140 letters at a time.

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If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please email either Frank Striefler (frank@mediaartslab.com) or Erik Hanson (erik@mediaartslab.com).

Germany is one of the most enthusiastic football nations on the planet and every four years the performance of the German National Team in the World Cup tournament brings this nation together. In the 2002 World Cup it was likely that Germany would meet Turkey in the final match. Especially in a city like Berlin, this possibility literally created two nations: the Turkish and the German. The general public, many politicians and media across Germany were afraid of riots prior to and after this big match.

TBWA was not. Together with their client adidas TBWA Berlin disrupted the negative energy and turned it into a big, positive adidas brand message with a simple quotation: football = sports = fun and fair competition. Within a few hours, we produced posters combining the two national flags and added a line in both languages that said: This is the final we dream of. Forever sports.

The brands audience loved the new two-nation flag and in no time it became the symbol in the press for fair sportsmanship. The new flag returned four years later, used by Turkish fans supporting the German National Team in the 2006 World Cup.