While he did not disclose the precise terms of those deals, Cam Balzer, the VivaKi executive who presided over the presentation, implied the selection of a group of preferred social media suppliers that Publicis agencies and their clients know they can trust and work with, was as important as their economics.

"We're negotiating preferential pricing with these partners, in so far as possible," he told the standing-room-only audience crammed in MediaVest's tiny presentation room. The group, which included an array of Publicis shops ranging from Starcom, MediaVest, Zenith, and Optimedia, also included small, but influential strategic units such as the dedicated communications planning team on the Procter & Gamble account.

Balzer said the goal of the meeting was to explain the deals, showcase the suppliers, and a new set of tools developed by the Nerve Center to enable the agencies to plan, buy and manage social media campaigns of any scale, on the fly, and on a easy-to-use and standardized basis that also offers them the flexibility to develop their own creative and communication strategies.

The goal, he told the Publicis teams, is to help "you engage with a really top notch set of partners in this space."

Balzer said VivaKi would add to the list of preferred suppliers over time, and that updates on vendors and proprietary tools would be disseminated via social media itself - a new a VivaKi social media group on, you guessed it, Facebook (at www.Bit.ly/VNC-FB or http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38052866027) and via a new Facebook widget that will provide news, updates, and direct access to many of the new tools the Nerve Center is developing to manage social media. Among other things, he said the widget would enable Publicis agency executives to immediately launch "request for social" campaigns with third-party providers. "It's really just a way to ping all or some of the partners," he said, adding, that the preferred partners would automatically receive the requests and that other key people in the agency organizations would be copied on those requests.

During the meeting, suppliers also made brief presentations, one of whom - SocialVibe Founder and President Joe Marchese, revealed the results of a never-before disclosed campaign MediaVest client Coca-Cola conducted recently through SocialVibe's social media branding platform.

The campaign for Cherry Coke, was designed not to facilitate actual sales of the product, but to boost "purchase intent." And based on that criteria, and working with highly regarded marketing research firm Marketing Evolution, Coca-Cola deduced that the campaign boosted intent 33% in one week at a cost of 47 cents per person.

"They could compare that to television. They could compare that to magazines," Marchese boasted, asserting that those kinds of metrics are putting tangible values around a medium that many on Madison Avenue still see as soft and fussy, and maybe a little bit ethereal.

One of the interesting things about the presentation was that the suppliers put hard numbers around the costs of their campaigns. Marchese said SocialVibe recommends spending $5,000 to $20,000 per month, per brand. And most of the other vendors recommended baseline budgets starting in the $50,000 per project range.

What might be most amazing about the new social media initiative is the speed in which it has been enacted, Curt Hecht, the head of the VivaKi Nerve Center noted that Balzer, who is heading the program, only just joined the Nerve Center from Performics, a company that Publicis acquired in September.

Hecht said the Nerve Center, which officially opens for business in January, has a suite of other tools, applications and next generation planning, buying, analytics and management systems on deck.

This news story is important. I recommend that everyone read it.