Andrew Cherwenka is VP Biz Dev at Trapeze, a Webby award-winning interactive marketing agency with offices in Toronto and New York City. As a frequent participant in internet advertising conferences and pitches he requires in-depth knowledge of leading web technologies and campaigns, which conveniently allows him to pass his various social media addictions off as work research.

Andrew lives with his wife in West Village, Manhattan. He's on Twitter as @cherwenka.

Blog Entries by Andrew Cherwenka

The Problem With Social Media Agencies

9 Comments | Posted November 2, 2009 | 08:27 PM (EST)


The interactive marketing business has gone through some constructive battles in its first 10 years.  Here are the big three and what they mean to marketers and agencies today.

Interactive vs Traditional: Earning a Seat at the Table

Since the early days of internet marketing in the ‘90s, traditional advertising...

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Social Marketing for Celebrities: Five Lessons from Neil Young

3 Comments | Posted September 15, 2009 | 02:46 PM (EST)


He isn’t on Twitter, he has no official Facebook fan page, and his website is a Flash disaster stuck in the ‘90s.  So what can Neil Young teach celebrities today about social marketing?  Canada’s legendary mutton-chopped musician was leveraging 5 key principles of social marketing decades before the...

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United Airlines' Second Golden Marketing Opportunity: United Breaks Guitars, Song 2

11 Comments | Posted August 27, 2009 | 01:30 AM (EST)


Last month, Canadian musician Dave Carroll gave United Airlines a gift.  After battling with their complaints department for 9 months he gathered his band and created a catchy video entitled "United Breaks Guitars." It was an instant YouTube hit, attracting over 5.2 million views.  For perspective that’s more...

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United Airlines Complaint Song Breaks 1M Views in 4 Days

19 Comments | Posted July 10, 2009 | 04:53 AM (EST)


United Breaks Guitars, the sudden viral hit produced by distraught United Airways passenger Dave Carroll and his band, broke 1M views a mere 4 days after he posted it on YouTube.

According to his blog, Carroll decided to write the song after his guitar was broken in...

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The Illusion of Corporate Transparency: The Cluetrain Manifesto 10 Years Later

5 Comments | Posted April 29, 2009 | 08:56 PM (EST)


To commemorate the Cluetrain Manifesto's 10th anniversary, social media executive Keith McArthur challenged bloggers worldwide to pick 1 of the 95 theses in the book and reflect on its current relevance. This is my contribution.

Ten years ago today, a hopefully prophetic obituary for the pre-internet business power structure...

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Changing the Face of Media: Kutcher vs CNN

Posted April 17, 2009 | 03:22 AM (EST)


"The old guard has passed and the new guard is here. And the new guard likes to ding dong ditch people just for fun." - Ashton Kutcher in his victory speech after beating CNN to the million follower mark.

At 2:13am EDT Friday, Ashton Kutcher took the crown in...

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Twitter Celebrities: Power vs Noise

Posted April 14, 2009 | 03:50 AM (EST)


"I just think its amazing that 1 voice can now be as powerful at [sic] an entire media network. thank you twitter!" -Ashton Kutcher on Twitter, April 13, 2009.

After only 3 months, actor Ashton Kutcher is nearing his goal of amassing 1 million Twitter followers. Of the

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Government 2.0: Obama's Empowered Web

Posted December 8, 2008 | 11:51 PM (EST)


On the heels of his impressive web marketing campaign and a subsequent 4-week quiet period in communications, Barack Obama has launched his presidential transition website: Change.gov - The Office of the President-Elect.

It's buggy but that hasn't stopped over 3,000 people from responding to the Transition Team's first...

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Antisocial Web Marketing: Why McCain Is Losing

Posted October 1, 2008 | 11:16 PM (EST)


The McCain campaign continues to drown in stunning negativity. A search on YouTube for the term "John McCain" yields a results page filled with McCain-bashing videos including:

McCain's YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare
David Letterman Reacts to John McCain Suspending Campaign

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We're Not All Talking About Palin

Posted September 10, 2008 | 11:12 PM (EST)


A few quick searches on Technorati confirms it: We're not all talking about Palin.

The Obama machine continues to dominate the web, with mentions of his name in 1.7 million blog posts. McCain has just over half that number. The surprise here is Palin: For every blog mentioning...

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Obama on YouTube: How the Web Was Won

Posted February 25, 2008 | 09:59 PM (EST)


In the three weeks since the Obama "Yes We Can" music video was posted, 11 million people have seen it. Or maybe a few thousand hard-core supporters watched it non-stop since then, on continuous loop, 5000 times each. Either way, 11 million views represents one insanely successful viral marketing...

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Facebook Is A Gangly Teenager

Posted July 19, 2007 | 06:39 PM (EST)


Eight weeks ago, Facebook took their boldest step yet: they went live with the Facebook Platform, giving unprecedented access to developers. On May 24 Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg declared to techies worldwide, "We want you to be able to build a business and make money with your applications....

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Viral Attempts are Getting Annoying

Posted June 25, 2007 | 11:29 AM (EST)


Boring, and a bit greasy. That's my reaction to the viral video attempt I just watched, this one for Cisco Systems. I'm still not sure what they're pitching but after six days and some expensive advertising placements their grand total of only 22,000 views might mean others agree.

Ah,...

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