Facebook Marketing Innovators: Renault, Timberland, Eastpak and more

Renault brought its Facebook page to life — and directly to the brand's fans and other car buggs — at AutoRAI 2011, the Netherland’s biggest automotive event. Visitors can ‘Like’ the brand's with an RFID Facebook card.

Renault placed specially made "Facebook pillars" in front of its cars on display. By holding their pass in front of these pillars, a connection was made to users' profiles and the car was automatically "shared" on their wall — sharing their offline car experience with their online friends.

Other fresh twists on branded Facebook marketing below.

• Timberland is inviting tree lovers to celebrate Arbor Day by finding their Tree Personality. For every tree planted in Timberland's "virtual forest" on its Facebook page, the brand will plant a real tree in Haiti. 

• Eastpak is sponsoring a "Human Tetris" game, which it's calling Spak. The backpack-maker is encouraging Facebookers to throw friends off buildings. If you ‘Like’ the brand's page,  you can play using your Facebook friends’ faces superimposed as falling bodies head for the concrete.

• PepsiCo's Frito-Lay brand just set a Guinness World Record for "Most Fans on Facebook in 24 Hours" with 1,571,161 new "likes" on April 11. As a thank-you, starting tomorrow, Frito-Lay will give away 24,000 bags of chips to the first 24,000 consumers that have "liked" the Frito-Lay Facebook page. Or fans can click on a product giveaway tab for a coupon valued at $3.99 for a bag of chips.

• Bounce is building buzz on Facebook in a new video campaign that features two Bounce fanatics — one a sheet person, the other a bar fan — and solicits consumers' ideas for new ways to use the fabric softener. 

• Under Armour is offering a live-streaming Royal Wedding alternative: New England Patriot Tom Brady is hosting a Q&A on the NFL Draft on Ustream and Under Armour’s Facebook Page. Brady discusses his rise to MVP status and chats with twelve winners of a contest where fans submitted photos, “getting charged up” to join the conversation.  

Other Facebook news of note to brand marketers:

• Facebook passed Google in Q1 2011 as the most popular choice for social sign-in, benefiting marketers with more profile data for targeting engagement, and consumers with a simplified process that verifies a user’s identity. 

• Extending its Sponsored Stories ad units, Facebook has launched three new social ad formats with an option for brands to show when a user’s friends have Liked a brand post, used an app or a game, or "Liked" a URL outside Facebook.

• Facebook’s new ad unit asks users questions, then posts the answers to their friends’ News Feed – which could be perceived as spamming your network, as Business Insider warns.

• As for real spam, Facebook users can now start "using protection" against social media diseases. For 99 cents a month, (free for 30 days) it protects users from viruses, spam and malware posted on their wall - the ultimate antidote to Facebook germs.