There’s no one like a trusted friend to give you advice, about your relationships, your job or the best place in town for ribs. It’s an emotional connection that is truly authentic, and one that brand marketers try to duplicate with brand advocates. These are people who may not necessarily be your friends but that you can relate to, people who want to share their love for a product or service.

Openhouse Gallery on New York City’s Mulberry Street last week became a fromagerie of sorts, thanks to The Cheeses of France Marketing Council, a consortium of dairy farmers and cheese firms based in Paris, which transformed the space into a pop-up twitter café filled with cheese. The pop-up was the culmination of the council’s new marketing campaign, “Everyday Perfect,” which celebrates French cheese as part of an everyday diet.

 For five days from Oct. 19 to 23, Hyundai inhabited the Re:Mix Lab, a new travelling arts and culture showcase in New York City, to show off its new three-door sport coupe Veloster and showcase the art and engineering of the vehicle. The brand-sponsored pop-up featured a gallery installation, live music, film premieres, fashion shows and cultural panels. 

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of “The Magic School Bus” series, Scholastic on Oct. 20 invited a class of second-graders from the United Nations International School to Pier 84 in Manhattan where the magical school bus rose from the Hudson River on a barge to serve as the backdrop for an oceanic themed lesson. The bus, which is part of an ongoing tour, traveled from Kingston, NY, to Manhattan on a barge pulled by a tugboat and docked at the branded bus stop at the Pier. From the barge emerged Ms.

Ruud Janssen has a background in marketing in the hospitality, meetings and events industry and is the founder and owner of The New Objective Collective, which counsels organizations on using live and digital strategies as part of their event programs. He’s a partner with The Event ROI Institute, and hosted Event ROI Week in London last month. Janssen is also an accredited trainer for MPI Global Training+. Here, he talks about social media-driven ROI at events and offers six ways to get a social media plan in place.