When David Beckham retired, Dom, Keiron and Zac here at Lean Mean Fighting Machine (I’m in my first week as their new Head of Social Content) quickly mocked up the above ad for World Baking Day and we tweeted and Facebooked it very quickly. As I’m just recovering from our Newsjacking book launch party, I am so excited about living one of the chapters Invent Your Own Event in real-time all weekend as we have set up a newsroom called The Oven and will be living the Urgent Genius dream — and baking loads of cakes and having a bit of fun in the process.

What will will be doing specifically? We will be responding to culture and to bakers all weekend as they practice-bake for the big day on Sunday. We would love for you to visit the WBD site as well as our Facebook and Twitter channels and share our little bits of newsjacking and real-time response to bakers in the throes of baking a few of the 100 brilliant recipes from influential bloggers that are featured on the site.

And as you know, I’m big into geeking out with technology so look out for the world’s first tweet-baked cake as we’ve connected an oven up to our Twitter account so it heats up and bakes the cake in accordance with the volume of tweets mentioning @WorldBakingDay, #worldbakingday and #bakebrave.

Are you a baker or cake-eater or lover of all things homemade and sweet? Please RT us as much as possible over the next week or so.

The hairdryer of the EPL and the longest serving manager  (Sir Alex Ferguson) called it a day this week after 26 years at the helm of Manchester United. It’s an incredible reign and a number of brands jumped on the story.

Our favourite is the simplicity of the Nandos Uk Tweet (Thanks to @bluespen for the heads up). It’s well known that Man United always get at least 5 minutes of injury time at the end of any game at Old Trafford. This timely tweet poked fun whilst celebrating Sir Alex’s career.

Paddy Power in true satirical style suggested it was a great time to be a Liverpudlian with this outdoor execution

KitKat posted this on Facebook playing homage to Sir Alex’s legendary post match ‘debriefs’ with his players. The Sun also chose to use the hairdryer analogy for their front page.

And Mars rearranged their well known strapline

If you’ve seen any other flashes of Fergie Genius let us know.

Reserva in Brazil and Kents Meats in the U.S. have both been victims of theft (or attempted theft) and then used it to their advantage by repurposing the CCTV footage as ads.

Nutella have now followed suit with a print ad displaying the various headlines about the theft they’ve suffered and it’s a big theft. In Germany thieves stole 5 tons of the nutty spread. Daniel in our Singapore office spotted this one and we love the fact that they’ve turned it into a participation idea. They are inviting people to tell them what they would do with Nuetella via the hashtag #5tonsofNutella.

Read about the theft here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2305791/Five-tonnes-Nutella-stolen-German-thieves.html

Thanks to daniel for the spot

It’s a Saturday and I’m babysitting (also known as parenting) but the young boy’s asleep so I’m geeking out with Star Wars Day. We covered a load of these “invented events” that brands create in the book but now I’m kicking myself that we didn’t cover “Star Wars Day.” Maybe because it’s a day built on a giant pun (I hate puns) “May the 4th be with you.” Actually, I don’t mind that pun. And.. there are so many fun things happening today around the world and a host of memes popping up (the thumbnail I found has been retweeted thousands of times and the Yanks across the Pond are just waking up). Loads of brands are riding the wave of this day. Here’s a few from the official Star Wars site including Princess Leia’s CinnaBon headphones, Disney’s Limited Time Magic Day and Chewie getting a job at MTV. I’m getting in on the act when the little dude wakes up as we’re rushing to the store to get “a refreshing mix of lime sherbet, sugar, sparkling water, and more lime” to make Yoda Soda. Pictured above.

But the award for the most awesome bit of Urgent Genius goes to the Toledo Mud Hens, a minor league baseball team. They’ve created the following Chewbacca jerseys for tonight and tomorrow and are having loads of Star Wars themed food and a Star Wars exhibit to rival a major SW geek convention — and all the money goes to charity. I really want this jersey:

How are you going to celebrate Star Wars Day? I’m going to Vine and FrameBlast my Yoda Soda taster sessions for sure. Let us know. Pic and info on the Mud Hens and Yoda Soda via Wired

Pre-trending ! Is it the latest  buzz world in the world of real-time? Digitas’ BrandLive and The Huffington Post are developing a real-time newsroom for brands that uses a Huffington Post algorithm to predict trending news and potential memes before they happen. Arianna Huffington in Manhatten yesterday positioned it as:

“We are delighted to be partnering with Digitas to harness the power of real-time tools to help brands tell their stories and build relationships while using social media to deepen connections with consumers and the impact brands can have on our lives”

Ad Age reported from the Digitas New Front presentation on Thursday that Travis Donovan, Huffington Post’s executive products editor, said “the partnership will allow brands to submit branded content and have it published in just two hours, maximizing their chances of jumping on a new subject while it’s hot. Stories will range from “Twitter length” text to slideshows to longer videos.”

There will be an area on the Huffington Posts homepage titled Partner Content where the branded content will sit. The content itself  will be created by either brands or BrandLive’s creative team .

Find out more about New Fronts here