As social media and reputation experts debate Greenpeace’s elaborate Arctic Ready campaign, we evaluate why it failed to land a blow on Shell.

Very little divides opinion on a night out like the prospect of karaoke. Willing participants go at it with relish, while naysayers lurk around the periphery rolling their eyes and watching the clock. In the (relatively) private confines of a car, though, everyone fancies themselves as the next vocal phenomenon, screeching along passionately to their favourite driving tunes and tapping the wheel with gusto. Now, Europcar has all bases covered.

The Welsh are good at a lot of things. Cakes for example. And rugby. Also not getting too irate when their entire country is ‘edited out’ of a prestigious EU reference book. But what this relatively small country is really good at is bandying together in the spirit of patriotism, for a common good

British footwear brand Dr Martens has launched a new cross-platform campaign encouraging users to share their first experiences of the brand’s iconic boots.

Topshop, the trendy UK fashion retailer, launched an in-store promotion last week in the UK and Ireland (and this week in New York) backed by one of the hottest mobile apps out there: Instagram. Using the uber-cool Instagram photo-sharing app is not a first in the world of retail, but we have to wonder: after TopShop’s effort will it become the app of choice for social-savvy high street brands?

Here’s one for climate skeptics: iconic Italian car maker Fiat has teamed up with travel e-tailer LastMinute.com to bring deals to Londoners to mark the Fiat 500 TwinAir’s break with London’s notoriously pricey congestion charge. When it comes to building a long-term community around a brand, perhaps nothing works better than giving people something for nothing and the chance to show it off to their friends. Here’s the strategy.

Aunt Jemima, arguably America’s oldest and most recognizable pancake brand, has proved that you can teach an old dog new tricks. With the help of PR powerhouse Weber Shandwick, the brand launched its official social media presence two weeks ago in conjunction with a simple yet effective social undertaking.

Ford, along with Montana-based sports marketing and comms specialists Outside Media, launched a Facebook campaign earlier this month that lets users compete for a sponsored adventure in the new Ford Explorer 2011. While the campaign tactics itself are far from revolutionary, Ford continues to distance itself from the rest of the SUV pack, building the Explorer into the social brand of choice. Here’s the breakdown.

Procter & Gamble next week will launch a social media campaign. This one, it hopes, will make a big difference. The effort aims to martial the power of bloggers and social network users everywhere to raise awareness for the need to bring clean water to children in need. The do-gooder campaign hopes to distribute roughly 200,000 liters of water with the help of your clicks.

This could be big on college campuses. Domino’s Pizza created a pizza give-away game that will get you and your friends to put bounties on each others’ taste buds. Not bad for a company that showed little taste in their past social media adventures.