Jumping on the social media brand wagon?

Every brand under the sun seems to be having a stab at social media and doing a good job of integrating it with above the line actvity. Which is a great sign in my opinion. However, it does feel like some are forcing it a touch. I think brands, clients and agencies are under so much pressure to be doing something different they fail to really think about what they want to achieve. It's almost like the sole objective is to simply do social media and prove we're doing integration.

The two brands I've noticed this week are Hellman's and Lambrini. Which are nicely produced sites and probably cost a fair few quid - although the guys on the Hellman's site look like failed cocktail barmen to me! Now I don't really like to slag things off if I don't know the objectives, so I do tend to keep an open mind on campaigns like these. For example, you could argue that the equity of a brand would be enhanced even if you're simply seen to be doing something innovative and involving? Perhaps it's irrelevant whether or not people are actually involved and following the communication through? If the objective is to create branded entertainment I guess it does the job.

Lee posted this about the new Stella Artois site a couple of weeks ago and I think I agree with him - there is a hell of a lot of brands out there creating web junk. Don't get me wrong I think the Stella Artois site is actually quite good if you give it a chance. But as Lee said, why bother? Do people really have the time or inclination to film themselves squeezing mayo out of a tube, or learning a Lambrini dance, filming it and uploading it to a site. I'd love to see the web stats for these kind of sites, but as I said, perhaps that's not the objective. I'm struggling to see how these campaigns are cost effective and produce any kind of results. To be honest, there is more people probably blogging about these campaigns than actually responding to the communication.