[Posted by Nate Elliott. Follow me on twitter.]

Yesterday we published a case study that I'm really excited about, covering how the NHL used tweet-ups to create excitement for the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs. The league worked with fans to organize a series of events that took place simultaneously around the world on the opening night of the playoffs. I had a chance to attend the tweet-up in Vancouver, and thought they were a great example of the power of both online and offline influence.

I got an email last week from a marketing firm that was different than most of the briefing requests I get.  This firm, Milk Media, partners with dairies to place branded advertisements on the back of the individual-sized milk cartons served at lunch time in schools around the country.

Interesting to me, is that the email (see below) calls out how similar companies have been chastised by the FTC for marketing to kids in a controlled environment.  Milk Media, it claims, is an a-ok marketing environment because milk promotes a healthy lifestyle.

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Greetings from Forrester's EMEA consumer and finance forums in Barcelona!  We've just finished the first two speakers of the event:  Forrester's VP and Research Director, Jaap Favier and Wunderman's Chief Marketing Technologist Officer, Mark Taylor. 

The presentations were an excellent introductions to the themes for both the consumer and the finance tracks:  Share Your Brand (for the consumer track) and Beating the Competition With Superior Customer Experience (for the financial track).

Jaap had a few particular soundbites which I thought really crystalized the current state of marketers today, and also the changes they need to make in order to accommodate the growing influence of user generated content and virtual communities.