Last year while I was in New York City for the Web 2.0 Expo, my friend Harrison Painter , the Host of “Coffee With Harrison”, asked me to make a video for New York Entrepreneurship Week answering the question of why it might be important for a business to use social media. So, my best friend T-Bill Hart filmed me in Times Square answering the question.

Why do you think it’s important for businesses to use social media, and what are some of the most creative ways you’ve seen businesses take advantage of social media? Examples are welcomed…I want to know what companies you think are crushing it the most using social media!

Lou Dela Pena (GM of the global ad agency, TBWA) on Apple’s branding success from John Exley on Vimeo.

In Singapore earlier this spring I sat down with Lou Dela Pena, the GM of the global powerhouse ad agency TBWA http://www.tbwa.com/ (Note: still a rookie here, I haven’t entirely figured out how to hyperlink yet).

I asked her about how Apple has been able to achieve such astounding levels of branding success and if their apparent lack of adopting social media discredits new media as a whole – or, if it simply speaks all the more to their legendary branding.

The list of brands TBWA works with is quite impressive (Apple, Adidas, Visa, McDonald’s, etc.), and I found Lou’s advice to startups on how to establish a recognizable brand to be equally solid.

According to their site, “TBWA is one of the top ten US-based agency networks made up of 258 full service agencies around the world with expertise in all of the disciplines required for the positioning, launching and long-term management of brands.”

Last note: I include a shout-out to my friend Leigh Caraccioli http://twitter.com/fleurdeleigh whom I worked with on a photoshoot last fall.

What do you wish I had asked her? Leave a question in the comments and I’ll email it to her!