THE SOCIAL TIMES — More and more big companies and brands are turning to social media and viral video as a means of promoting their products, and car companies are no exception. It seems that these days every other week a new viral campaign is being launched by a car company. Read about the video campaigns that have been launched by Volkswagen, Toyota, Kia, Ford and Mini Cooper after the jump...

CLICKZ — Late last year, German auto maker Volkswagen chose to launch its new 2010 Golf GTI Mark VI model in the U.S. exclusively via an iPhone application, and found great success in doing so, according the brand's agency, AKQA Mobile. Speaking at an industry even in New York earlier this week, AKQA's head of mobile Dan Rosen said the strategy resulted in a 97 percent lower cost-per-sale than what he described as a "traditional" automotive product launch. "VW launched the Golf purely over iPhone. There was no paid media at all surrounding the launch," he said...

ALL FACEBOOK — VW is rolling out a new technology for their cars called "BlueMotion" which apparently makes their cars more environmentally friendly through the reduction of carbon output. To promote the new vehicles, the company, with the help of 1MD, has rolled out a new Facebook Connect-enabled promotion. Like previous campaigns we’ve covered, this one integrates user data directly into a flash video. For the most part this video does not have an excessive use of profile data, as the novelty of such functionality is slowly beginning to wear off...

CLICKZ — Volkswagen hopes to strike a chord with auto buyers who grew up during the last few decades and remember the childhood car-ride pastime known as either "Punch Buggy" or "Slug Bug." The carmaker will feature the on-the-road boredom killer during its :30-second Super Bowl ad, while introducing a video game of the same nature on its Facebook "fan" page that day. The campaign, called "Punch Dub," features comedic actor Tracy Morgan in the TV ad. The commercial shows people who - in tradition with the kid's play activity - light-heartedly slug co-riders in the arm after spotting a Volkswagen vehicle...

ADVERTISING AGE — This week on the viral video chart, LG suggests people think twice, Google wants people to think Chrome and Cisco hopes people can't stop thinking about its security with a faux infomercial promoting its SIO to Go iPhone app. And sneaking in at the 10th spot, U.K.'s Drench spring water hopes people latch onto its jazz-playing hamster band. It's also the week for several long-running campaigns to reclaim their superiority. Evian's "Rollerbabies" returns to first place -- its 13th week in that spot and its 23rd straight week on the chart. And T-Mobile's "Dance" returns to the chart, marking its 29th appearance...