Mysterious WAKE UP ads have been appearing for the last few days counting down to May 4-5th (or 980,690 seconds from now) with Wake-Up-Australia.com.au being the destination.
The flash banners on News.com.au show a idealistic scene that then fills with black ink to end on just WAKE UP in white text.
The bold design stands out as does the intrigue of having something unbranded spend so much money on advertising.
And just by chance (or maybe it was staged) popular Aussie Youtube blogger Blunty3000 was witness to a bus load of people people shouting "WAKE UP" with the same white text on black background.
What is this for?
Who has this much money to spend on a unbranded teaser campaign?
Didn't they learn from KONY2012 that you cant expect the public to stay interested in anything for more than a week?
My initial thought was for a solar energy company (the black in representing oil), then it might be a new NAB campaign for people to wake up about bank fees, it could be a new coffee/iced coffee but this is some serious spend that would rule them out.
The agency who registered the domain is Tongue and their client list doesn't give much away. They are part of the STW Group so could be helping out a larger agency in the group with the domains?
I'm guessing the WAKE UP ads will ramp up and all will be revealed soon. Wake Up! budget accommodation must be loving it as any search traffic is helping them as the campaign doesn't currently have any search buy (That's another lesson when doing a teaser campaign)
Interested to see how this pans out and if the teaser phase is justified. There's very little chatter on Twitter about it despite all the activity and a simple call to action. I'm waiting for sky writing, newspaper wrap to follow on from the bus protest and banner ads.
If you want to be part of this for 2011 please send us your agency or brand xmas cards or promotions so submit@bannerblog.com.au Subject: Xmas 2011
If you want to save us even more time also send a 550x322 sized jpeg with your submission also.
Pet Peeve? Agencies donating small amounts to charities or asking for views, likes or tweets to raise their donations but at a capped limit (which is very low). Not only that but mentioning the charity but not linking them or supplying any information as to why you should care about said charity.
Last Updated: Jan 10, 2012
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(disabled most of the videos due to browser crashing.
2011's Trends
Mainly Video 55
HTML 45
Flash 32
Agency Staff 30
Charity Donations 24
Built Something 20
Facebook Connect 18
Tweets/Twitter 16
Live Streaming Video 11
Agency Hipsters 9
Agency Staff Singing 8
Augmented Reality (AR) 7
Tumblr 6
Ironic Use Of Xmas Jumpers 6
Upload Your Face 6
Mobile App 6
Projections 5
Animated Gifs 6
Mobile 5
Games 5
Win Prizes 5
QR Codes 4
Instagram 4
World Record | World's First 4
Digital Controlling Real Life 4
Occupy Something 4
Maps API 3
3D Printing 2
Swearing 2
Unity 1
Sexy Santa 1
Bannerblog's Top Picks
Every agency in the world with the same brief, the same as the year before. The agency xmas card is the toughest gig in the industry. Here is Bannerblog's top picks for 2011.
Dare Vancouver [CA]: A Very Qualitative Christmas
Testing Christmas present suggestions submitted via tweets with a Focus Group exposes all the pain and joy of focus group testing.
Fold 7: Advertising With Bells On
The idea is simple but the writing and the delivery of this mockumentary lifts it.
Critical Mass [US]: The Christmas Spirit Award Critical Mass need a special mention for the sheer amount of Xmas related stuff they produced in December. After sending a press release about being named Santa's Digital AOR they they built a "maker bot" and printed people's wishes.
Moving Brands: 3D Printed Chocolate Advent
Yum! While the online presentation of the project is lacking they did have an installation at their office in which you could go in and sample the chocolate.
Ignited [US]: iPhone Choir "Deck The Halls"
The agency is lucky they put a donation limit on their video views ($2,500 donated) as it's broken 150,000 views.
The Agency Ecards
(Brand Ecards and Xmas Promos here)
Presented in no particular order.
VML [US]: What's Worth Sharing
VML win the best charity effort with their installation at a train station which was then destroyed by many eager kids. They also ponied up $10,000 to Toys for Tots which was the largest agency donation we found.
It's like a Christmas charity version of Cyperien Gaillard's Monument of Beer
Mono [US]: Monotunes
Here's what you do in the office today. Crank up your speakers as loud as they can go, randomly click and then go to lunch.
David Wilson [UK]: Alternative Advent Calendar
Young Director David Wilson serves us a daily dose of WTF in his Alternative Advent Calendar. My faves are Day 4, Day 13 and Day 19. Check out the rest of his work on Vimeo.
Deep Local [US]: Deck The Screens
The most expensive way to set up Xmas tree lights.
I'm pretty sure this will work on a PC or Android device but I'm guessing the Deep Local guys didn't have any around when filming.
Modea: Wisdom Tree Gift Selector
A simple gift chooser
Inferno [UK]: Guerilla Goodwill
You'd think a guy giving away $5 to random people would have received a better response?
39 Degrees North: Guerilla GUNDOG
Part dog, part gun... all cop.
Collective [UK]: Lionel Blair's Twitter Christmas Charades
I had to Goggle Lionel Blair to understand the connection but he used to have a charades show and is well known in the UK. So if you're a fan you can watch all of the 50+ minutes of charades action captured live earlier in December.
Lit Fuse [US]: The Are You Santa Test
Take the "Are You Santa?" test but be warned the funny guys at Lit Fuse have made it as tricky as possible.
Host [AU]: Butt St Choir
The custom built touch screen and overall presentation is fantastic.
IdeaWorks [AU]: Fantastic Santastic Christmas Sop Front Contraption
Click on an item and have it turn on at the IdeaWorks' office. Unlike a lot of the streaming efforts this is still running over the xmas break so we can still enjoy it.
They've also claimed the World's Longest URL https://fantasticsantasticinteractive
christmasshopfrontcontraption.com/ but technically adding a filename to the end of this would have made it longer.
McGarry Bowen [US]: Staff Xmas Beatbox
I'm addicted to that clap sound.
Mediaworks [NZ]: Perfect Christmas Gift
Click the gift to find out what the best Christmas gift is.
TBWA [UK]: Ad Santa
Ad Santa is one person you don't wont to mess with. He's like the recent Liam Neeson movies, he get's it done no matter what the task. Send Ad Santa a request and he'll send back a hand written note with the solution and many times photographic evidence.
W+K [DK]: Virtual Holiday Dinner
It's 'serial killer' creepy but W+K have rolled out the Virtual Holiday Dinner again after a successful season last year.
W+K [UK]: A Choir of You
The Wieden + Kennedy folks in the UK however have kept up the tradition of doing something different with their office front each year and this year created an equally creepy "Choir of You".
Weapon 7 [UK]: Bubble N Tweet
This got a little lost in execution I think.
Lucidity Digital [IE]: Turkey Libre
Want to win an iPad 2?
And for those not in Ireland SVP is how The St Vincent de Paul society refer to themselves. Funky logo no?
RBH [UK]: Mistletoe Online
RBH will donate 10 pence for every message sent! Big spenders as they haven't put a limit on the number. We estimate they have donated around 150 pounds to Children With Tumours. RBH if you're reading this you should have just donated 5,000 pounds as a licence fee for using the image of kids with cancer to promote your agency.
Pollen [AU]: Ambitious Receiver
The gift selector for the global ECD that has everything.
YUKI Media [UK]: AR Card
Yuki Media keeping it as simple as they can. We'd appreciate a video showing off the AR in action as none of us can be bothered printing it out.
TBWA [VN]: QRistmas tree
The QR codes take you to the 12 days of Christmas sung by the team which doesn't seem like much of a reward for all the effort it takes to scan one of these suckers.
And for those that were planning on doing this next year note they have already claimed the World's First Christmas tree made out of QR codes.
Connelly Partners [US]: Mistletoe Mixup
Have your Facebook friends randomly chosen and if you choose to kiss them the agency will donate a $1 to Children's Tumour Foundation. Sadly only 497 kisses have been counted so we hope the agency donates the $2,500 anyway.
I did find this match up with Russ Tucker quite fitting for my profile pict.
Tribal DDB SF [US]: Siriclaus
Prank your kids this year with Siriclaus! Parents can predetermine the response and then hand the phone to their kids and them film them!
KOKO Productions [CA]: A Shitty Video
This has a great punchline.
Pixel Pusher[CA]: Plug It In
The agency made a donation to the Canadian Brain Tumour Foundation instead of buying presents for their clients, this was a personal donation as their co-founder died of brain cancer just a few weeks ago.
The agency also had the time to make an Augmented Reality xmas card too but thankfully made a video for everyone who is too lazy to print the AR marker.
These guys were the production team on the Skittles Gif Rap the Rainbow.
Big Fuel [US]: Catvent Calendar
31 adoptable cats for your viewing pleasure. Only 10 have been adopted so far so there are still some great cats available. I like the idea of dressing up the cats to make them more presentable than a boring photo. The Humane Society should have promoted this on their less than impressive site.
Framestore [UK]: How Will You Be Spending Christmas?
A change in direction for Framestore with a simple charity centric message this year. They have raised over £6,010.00 (donate here) which is close to the best agency effort. VML topping them with $10,000.
eStrategy Group[AU]: Kidnapped Santa
We dare you to watch the entire 3 hours of video captured during the live stream.
Glue [UK]: Greenie Meanies
This time Santa has been kidnapped by two Greenie Meanies and you must follow the clues across Twitter, Tumblr and Youtube to locate him and save the presents for a kids Hospital. There's also a prize for the first person who locates them.
I feel sorry for the other staff who were probably working on briefs for clients who want everything before they go on holidays while these guys run around London dressed up having fun.
Draft FCB SF [US]: Agency Peephole
Loosely associated with Xmas this one is one of the few that use instagram. It didn't take off because I'm not sure many agency staff care about how other agencies party.
Rodeo Agency[AU]: Eye Colour Chart Testmas
This is a great xmas present for recruiters :)
TMS [UK]: Lolly for Lolly
Every tweet lights a heat lamp which melts an ice lolly (icy pole) which fills up a container which is marked with donation values for charity.
Lolly is slang for money in the UK as is Tom Hanks for thanks.
You can watch the archive of 3hrs worth of water dripping into a container here. Or a hand holding the lolly here. A DVD with a directors cut of the footage is being produced to help raise more money for charity.
MRM Worldwide [SG]: Nick Handle's 12 Days of X'Mas
A agency version of the 12 Days of Christmas sung by their animated CEO to show how far the agency will go to please their clients. The actual 12 aren't that bad.
Digitas [US]: Gary the Snowdude
Digitas went for a three pronged approach this year.
They used their Facebook page, allowed you to just simply click and they will donate an unspecified amount (let's hop it's a lot) to that charity and then as a reward you get Gary the Snowdude who turns any web page into snowy awesomeness*
*Awesomeness may vary depending on your expectations associated with the word awesomeness.
Philip Andrews [AU]: Facebook Friend Gift
Turn your Facebook profile into a montage of all your friends. It's their cruddy gift to you. I wanted an iPad 2!
Andrew Salomone [UK]: Christmas Jumpers
Turn your image into a custom printed jumper thanks to a hacked knitting machine. Check out Andrew Salomone's work he has a bunch of interesting projects.
Watch the video to see the Bill Cosby jumper. So meta!
Note: I grabbed this off CR so read all about it and see the other jumpers here.
Robinson & Maites [US]: Free-Gifting Catalog
A service to help you re-gift all those unwanted gifts. Note they no longer accept fruitcake.
Note: Fruitcake seems to have the worst reputation in the US. The fruitcake association needs a Pro Fruitcake campaign soon to risk an entire generation missing out.
The top 10 Cake trends for 2012 don't mention fruitcake at all!
Drawing Book [AU]: Illustration Buzz
The Drawing Book sent us a selection of Xmas inspired Illustration Buzz / Exquisite Corpse drawings from their pool of illustrators.
Fluidx Studio [AU]: BRB
I think we all felt like this at the end of the year
Make [US]: Instant Popularity Xmas Cards
A box of pre-strung xmas cards for clients and friends to adorn their office and make them look popular. Click the image to see more.
ROB [US]: Custom Cooked Xmas Messages
Robert Larsen (ROB) made 29 custom videos to all the people he worked with in 2011. Those chocolate cake letters look tasty!
Web Guerillas [CH]: Choir It Yourself
The team are under your control thanks to a Youtube hack.
Think RLA [UK]: Al's Granny
Al's grandma died (sad) and left a treasure box filled with recipe cards, magazine clippings and tips on hosting a party. The agency put them together into a book for everyone to enjoy. They also uploaded a few choice clippings to their flickr page like this one for meat pancakes. Yum!
Maverick [UK]: Wish Bird
Send a tweet to the Wish Bird tree and help the agency decide which charity gets their £1,000 donation.
Euro RSCG Discovery [US]: Holiday Sentiment Tracking
Track the sentiment of people as they move through the holiday season. It seems stress was at it's highest Dec 21 while being in the spirit peaked early this year on Dec 20. Must have been pitch time at Euro on the 21st? Interesting to see 40% of women are feeling naughty while just 13% of men feel the same way.
Click Fire Media [US]: Shred Sled 2K12
The actual game itself is unplayable (unless that was me?) but the voice over more than makes up for it.
Oddcast [US]: Creepy Robot Santa
This would make any child cry.
Blue Cube [IE]: Santa Spielberg Presents
Can you match a famous face with a member of the Blue Cube team? You can win tickets to the Dublin Film festival.
Gelia [US]: Creative Ways to Celebrate the 12 Days
The agency put a lot of effort into each day as each one is unique in both content and presentation. I'm glad to see Fruitcakes getting a little love here too.
SS+K [US]: Big Holiday Message
No post its for SS+K just a lot of paper and scissors.
Stone Canoe [CA]: Merry la Mort
Zombie snowmen need to be destroyed! Chrome only on this one
Blonde [UK]: Xmas Message
Nice and simple here from Blonde.
Excentric [PT]: Digital Santa Claus
What does Santa do for the other 11 months of the year?
This is the same agency that did the Digital Nativity story from last year which had over 20 million views. Check out their case study on that below. I don't think this one will have the same impact as last years though.
Draft FCB [AR]: End of the World
I'm still confused about this one. Something about multiple ends of the world and the staff have acted them out? Contact us to explain what's going on.
Camboyadm [AR]: Profecias Camboyanas
Something about digital prophecies but we're also confused by this one.
Guru Studio [CA]: Reindeers Chilln'
The character design is great, we wanted more.
Agency Net [AU]: Big Ass Gifmas Message
The biggest animated gif this year
BBDO [BE]: Best Tweeshes
Send a tweet and have it form a musical note.
Grey Group [SG]: QR Merry Xmas
More QR love from Singapore. This one uses geo-location to drop presents on you. How nice.
Droga 5 [US]: Press Release
Droga awards McGarry Bowen for their holiday card business. Quite a fun read.
Rethink [CA]: Holiday Piñata Bash
Nice use of annotated Youtube videos to let people bash a pinata. I also didn't realise you're meant to add the squiggly above the ñ.
TBWA NY [US]: Holiday Gif Giver
More xmas related gifs than you will ever need.
G2 [US]: Haikus for Humbugs
Send a random Haiku to someone random grumpy person thanks to G2. It lets you pick a grumpy tweet and then fire an @reply to them. This one seems to have gone well judging by the number of Haikus posted.
Fraser Communications[US]: Home for Good LA
Fraser go all in with a $5 donation to Home for Good LA for every view to this video. At the time of posting its sitting at 651 but with no limit specified let's hope we can get that up to a around 5,000 to really break the bank.
Tribal DDB [TR]: Mutlu Yıllar!
Tribal DDB Instanbul show off their city in this very sweet musical montage.
Zaraguza [SK]: Meme Karaoke Party
Zaraguza representing the Slovak Republic with their Meme Karaoke Party machine. I'll throw in a mention of Nyan cat just for the sake of search results.
This is the same agency that produced the alcowebizer for sites the year before.
Visual Jazz [AU]: Race the Agency
The only Ecard to use Unity but luckily they also added a video for you to watch how much fun you'd be having.
Ogilvy [AU]: Carol Covers
I was surprised at the NSFW language in this one especially considering the agency. Farking Australian covers of classic carols.
Carrot Creative [SK]: Instacheer
Pick some festive tags and watch other people's Instagram photos float down for your viewing pleasure.
Breakus [UK]: Bella and Christmas
Warning: This is an actual animation meant for kids and does not contain any advertising jokes, hipsters, social media christmas puns, swearing, nudity, explosions and is definitely safe for kids to watch.
Karmarama Good Works[UK]: Ping Pong 24
The founder of the agency played Ping Pong for 24 hrs straight which raised over 3,250 for for Age UK. Watch the highlights on the site
Note: Lional Blair also made an appearance in the last hour after coming off the work for Collective. What an agency slut he is!
Crayon [UK]: The Million Pixel Christmas Card
Every positive and negative christmas tweet will go towards revealing a side of the Million Pixel Christmas card. We've arrived late to the party so both sides are full :(
The promise of being featured in one of their picture frames with your twitter profile seems like an odd lure though.
Mother [UK]: Psychic Tees
100 unique T-Shirts printed with predictions from a renowned psychic based off the number you choose to buy. You won't know what the prediction is until you buy one for $100. The shirt however already knows you are going to buy it. All the money goes to Age UK which has made out like bandits this xmas card season.
Here's a sneak peak at what they look like. Many of the shirts have already been sold so this has been a success.
Saatchi & Saatchi [UK]: Love Mix
Rather than force the staff to sing Saatchi's asked the talented ones who already do music to submit songs around the theme of Love and Hope. The result is an eclectic mix of tunes to download.
The Partnership Group [UK]: Animated Jumper
This Christmas ecard video does what it says on the box.
A&N Creative [UK]: Xmas Message
All I can say about this one is you should always use Youtube or Vimeo to host your videos as it provides a much faster download to view videos and works on all browsers.
26 [UK]: 26 Stories for Christmas
26 Writers, 26 Illustrators collaborating to create 26 Stories for Christmas based off a single object that represents Christmas to them. There's some nice stories in there just around the object chosen like Roshni's #12
C3 Metrics[UK]: Dog Day Xmas
Someone needs to tell C3 that the internet is ruled by cats not dogs.
Metal Creative [US]: Kids of Metal Creative Say Thanks
Awww so cute
Mortar Creative [US]: Chalkboard Greetings
The agency fights over what the Agency Christmas Ecard should be about.
Hart Inc [US]: 12 Mystery Presents for Christmas
Guess the mystery wrapped item and win the gift for that day. They gave you clues though to help make it easier.
CP+B [US]: Nutcracker 5000
Your chance to fire a snowball at the CP+B crew and raise money has passed but you can watch the highlights in the video.
Glad that the machine doesn't pull any punches when firing those snowballs and that CP+B raised $15,000
GSDM [US]: One-Sided Snowball Fight
Compared to the CP+B team these guys got off lightly.
Ogilvy / DT Digital [AU]: Naughty of Nice
Another iteration of the shoot a staff member. This time with a slingshot (I thought they were illegal in Australia) and semi slow mo video.
TBWA [UK]: Window Ad\vent Calendar
TBWA UK Collaborated with 24 different artists to create a new piece for each day. View the pieces on their site.
Lean Mean Fighting Machine [UK]: Frozen Janet
Trust the LMFM guys to come up with something completely random.
Boussias [GR]: Note for Santa
The Boussias team left some notes for Santa on where to leave the presents they are expecting when they return in 2012
Fearless [UK]: Robbery Xmas Invitation
The Fearless team were robbed of a laptop with the Xmas party invitations (they didn't have their invitations in the cloud) So they used the security footage as their message.
The mash up videos are well done as is the agencies commitment to the idea for all of December.
Conversation Agency [US]: Occupy The Holidays
They have even allowed people to download the track! But you have to give your email address, so no tyre kickers please.
HCB Health [US]: Occupy The North Pole
The Elves campaign for better Elf Car by throwing things at Santa
Cadient [US]: Holiday Dashboard
Lots of little jokes hidden throughout this Holiday Dashboard.
Atmosphere Proximity [US]: Santa Clout
The Boussias team left some notes for Santa on where to leave the presents they are expecting when they return in 2012
22 Squared [US]: Flash Mob
I do believe this is our only flash mob
22 Squared [US]: Note for Santa
Not wanting to rest on the Flash Mob brilliance 22 Squared also put together this Instagram mash up tool called Drunken Mistletoe.
Boussias [GR]: Note for Santa
What if Santa ran his own agency? That's ad agency not talent agency.
Plan B [GR]: Kris at the Office
Plan B have also hired Santa for their agency. Follow the exploits on the blog.
Silverfox Agency [US]: Christmas Dress Ups
The entire team dressed up as a Holiday film. There's some pretty good efforts in here.
Team One [US]: 12 Days of Non-Denominational Celebration
12 Days of Celebration with a different piece of content for each day. Including the Ugly Holiday Sweater tumblr.
Ardent Creative [US]: Out of the Frost
Suspense, action, special effects, cliches... this film has everything except a gratuitous moonlight butt shot.
Mullen [US]: Snowify.me
Type in your address and Snowify it, as simple as that.
Swirl Marketing[US]: Swirl Sings the Holidays
More staff singing Christmas Carols for the charity Little Kids Rock.
Thornberg & Forester [US]: Holiday Jam
A digital “exquisite corpse†app with a festive theme.
Marcus Thomas [US]: Wheel Of Holiday Destiny
6 hrs of awesome wheel spinning action watch it all here. They even created a dedicated Twitter account for this card.
Landor [UK]: Office Tree
Synchronised office windows in Landor's amazing UK office.
Landor [US]: Projection Display
Landor US looked back at the heritage of their building for the projections in their office street front.
Carmichael Lynch [US]: CL Stocking
It doesn't matter what you do the Stocking will be there even on Facebook.
Katapult [UK]: Made by Us For You
The journey of Katapult's Spiced Apple Chutney from tree to table.
Alexandre Rivaux [FR]: 2012
Not sure what to make of this one but it's an interactive 2012.
BBDO [DK]: What's My Fucking Nw Year's Resolution
Surprising we had only one of these type of sites this year. Always good for a laugh.
Up Shot [US]: White Elephant
I actually wouldn't mind some Super Mario 3-Dees Gummies.... mmmmmm
Creative Lift [US]: Snowflakeinator
The ONLY snowflake maker this year.
OBM Advertising [AU]: What's Under The Tree
Even more scrolling for you to do for the good of Second Bite charity.
Javelin [US]: Itty Bitty Holiday Tale AgencySpy nominated this as the worst Xmas card of 2011 but I think there's worse out there than this.
Brand Sugar [TW]: Claymation Xmas
A cute animation made with clay.
Blammo [CA]: Santa Fraud
Exposing Santa as the fraud he is.
Youtube: Festive Tweaks
Youtube has had a couple of festive tweaks you may have noticed.
On certain Christmas videos the progress scrubber button now has a snowflake icon on it. There's also a snowflake icon in the main bar which produces snowflakes over the video which can be controlled by the cursor.
Google [UK]: Let It Snow
Typing "let it snow" into the Google search bar produces a snow effect on the site.
Brand Ecards and Christmas Promotions
Riot Squad TV [US]: Merry X-stitch
The only other entry to use the 99% and the Occupy Wall Street protests as part of their xmas theme.
Agency: Unknown [US]
Destructoid: Sexy Santa
1.5 million views to this piece to promote game blog Destructoid. Not bad guys.
Agency: Unknown [US]
Skittles: Gif Rap The Rainbow
Skittles Canada gets a little funky for xmas.
Agency: BBDO Toronto
[CA]
TJ Maxx: Share a Carol with Google Street View
Would you like that with extra cheese?
Agency: Unknown [US]
Deutsche Telekom: Hologram Christmas Surprise with Mariah Carey
Talk about bringing out the big guns for this event.
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi
[DE]
Museum Of London [UK]: Dickens Installation
The Museum of London commissioned Simon Costin to create a Dickens inspired street scene for their exhibition. Read about it here on CR.
Barclays: UK's First Cashless Carol Singers
Just tap your card to make a donation. Don't have a Barclays card? No worries you have a great excuse as to why you didn't donate.
Agency: Unknown [UK]
Victoria's Secret Holiday 2011
Michael Bay at it again. Lucky bastard. I was waiting for them to transform!
If your after something with a little more personality them sample what these ladies sound like singing Jingle Bells...
Walmart: Yodeling Cat
The Victoria's Secret Jingle Bells video was the perfect segue to introduce this video. (boom tish)
Agency: Martin Agency [US]
LOVE Magazine: Sexy Advent Calendar
A sexy and somewhat famous model each new day (even a few guys if you're into that kind of thing) presented in an annoying interface. You can catch a few of the videos on Vimeo
AT&T U-verse TV Santa Tracker
Flip to channel 98 to get all your family holiday fun. An interesting idea as we're seeing a lot of custom promotion channels being created lately with this one being a fully fledged micro site of entertainment. There's even live new cast of Santa's journey around the world.
Lynx: Xmas Kisser
This doesn't really live up to the Lynx (Axe) standard.
Agency: BBH Asia
Brighter Planet: Snow Flakes
If actual environmental impact calculations sounds exciting to you then THIS is the xmas message for you.
airBaltic: Elves on a Plane
Elves take over a plane in a very cute video projection
piece.
Square Enix: Xmas Fisheye Polaroid's
A fairly simple affair from Square Enix this year.
Heineken Lebanon: Color Your Christmas
Each like on Facebook lights a globe on the billboard in the middle of Lebanon.
Agency: JWT MEA
Heineken Singapore: Social Christmas Tree
Create your very own Social Christmas Tree with your Facebook friend's photos. I can't imagine the power bill for that tree!
Watch the rest of the videos and see how it worked on the site.
Agency: Iris Worldwide [SG]
Heineken USA: Beer Finder
Buy yourself a BeerTender and have it disguised as a gift from someone else with the power of Facebook strangers.
This is one of the few Xmas promotions directly tied to a purchase and as of posting the app had 160,000 monthly active users so the app got around.
Heineken USA: The Heineken Holiday App
And to top it all off Heineken also produced a Holiday themed app to let you plan the perfect party, send ecards and according to Heineken "This app is all you need, aside from Heineken, to throw the perfect holiday party."
Calgary Tourism: Singing Tweets
To help warm up the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra Chorus, Calgary Tourism asked Calgarians to tweet their tips on how to keep warm.
Guinness: Festive AR Pint "Blipp AR a Guinness pint to drag and drop a menu of ornaments and create a perfect Guinness postcard."
Why? because you're already drunk?
FNAC: Santa Snaps
You'd think Santa would be packing a better camera than that. Surely he would have bought a better one online at FNAC?
American Express Australia: Snowman Builder
I can't escape these things on Facebook as they are targeting me so heavily with ads.
American Express Australia: Talking Tags
A bit of the old Augmented Reality huh! Check out the site if you want to see the in action. You'll notice the same mouth used in Ogilvy's Carol Covers. Although these are not so foul mouthed :)
JC Penny: QR Santa Tags
One of the more practical uses of QR codes. It's the modern day version of recordable talking cards.
Children's Choir Shopping Mall Bullying
De Opvoedingslijn is a Flemish advice hotline for parents with out of control kids. The kids were pretty tame in the end but it's a successful video.
Old Spice: MANta Claus
Old Spice guy attempts to give everyone in the world a present. I saw the teaser for these on Hulu which now makes much more sense.
Webroot: Social Media Sobriety Test
Save yourself from embarrassing drunken updates with Webroots Sobriety Test browser extension.
This was released in 2010 but we didn't cover it so posting here to be completionist
Webroot: Holiday Party Sobriety Test
I believe this is new for 2011 and allows you to set up an app on your phone to save you from posting embarrassing drunken photos from the office Xmas party.
Starbucks: Augmented Reality Magic Cups
There was also a bonus gift voucher for finding all 5 of the characters in the store and sharing with friends. I thought this was an added feature of their existing Starbucks Card apps (which already has a large user base) but this was a special build. View the full mobile app range here.
Ebay: Give-A-Toy Store
Ebay created an installation and web store to allow people to buy toys for kids directly from their phone. The installation is much more rich than the online store.
Watch the overview video or visit the site to make a donation.
Macy's: Believe-o-Magic App
We might be cynical but you an imagine that Augmented Reality is amazing to a kid. The ability to take photos and then send them is a nice touch. The fact it forces you to go to a Macy's store is a little strong though.
Macy's: Letter to Santa
Every Macy's store has a letterbox for Santa so why not use this site to help your kids create and decorate a letter.
For every letter received Macy's will donate $1 up to 1 million to the Make a Wish foundation. They've since received 1.4 million (that's a lot of paper waste!) but it also means one major donation to a worth charity.
PNC: Christmas Price Index
The PNC Christmas Price Index is a great tradition (it's been going since 1984) and this interactive edition is one of the best.
The amount of work that went into making it is a little OTT but that's how you have to roll these days to stand out. I hope the actual model is kept somewhere for public viewing and not thrown away.
If you want to read more about the methodology check out the Wikipedia page.
Agency: Deutsch [US]
Swedish Post: Xmas on Wheels
Another big production piece where an actual set was built for the interactive piece. Users could log on and take control of the camera, take photos and then send real postcards to their friends.The things we do to encourage people to send a postcard :) The actual site is closed up now which is a shame.
Agency: Ã…kestam Holst [SE]
Toyota: Life After Santa
Santa bought a Prius to get around to the reindeer had to find other work.
Peanuts: A Charlie Brown's Christmas App
Great idea and perfect timing. Look to 2012 and beyond to see a lot more "classics" getting the app treatment as a new way to get revenue from the same material.
Agency: Loud Crow Interactive [CA]
Toronto Tourism: Giant Charity Snowmen
Toronto put giant snowmen illustrated by various artists around the city for the festive season. For every snowman photo uploaded to Facebook they donated $2 to Starlight Canada. Check out the full gallery here.
Saks on 5th Avenue: 2011 Holiday 3D Projection
Here's one thing that online stores can't do. A big ass projection onto the side of the flagship building.
Westfield: LOL Cards
The site has been closed off but you can still download the apps here.
Agency: EVB [US]
Sadly there were a few Xmas cards we didn't catch during their live time and thus cannot really feature.
A Harvey Nichols Christmas: Walk of Shame
They are also encouraging women to tweet their walk of shame. But as the top Youtube comment explains just make sure you have cab fare and you'll avoid any need to walk at all.
John Lewis Christmas Advert 2011
Awww how could you not tear up over this one.
Agency: Adam & Eve [UK]
Apple: Santa Siri
I had no idea Santa was so disorganised
BMW: World's Fastest Christmas Card
BMW goes all Top Gear for their Christmas Message. I can imagine the reactions when customers received the card in the mail.
Gavin Patterson's slow illustration work can be seen here.
I love this Pin Me If You Can promotion from Contiki by Poke London. Five locals show their surroundings in a set of video clues and give hints about the location. All you have to do is drop a pin on the map to guess where they are—not which town they’re in, but the very spot on which they’re standing.
Like the Contiki page for extra clues then watch the videos which not only give you clues to the location but do a nice job of selling the sights of the area. A promotion that actually does the job of selling the product. A rarity these days.
I love following the marketing of video game releases as they are some of the purest forms of advertising. You have a very defined market, established brands/IP and a huge pool f assets to call on. Oh and you have REAL FANS. Not the kind of fans who occasionally drink or eat your product but people who wear your brand, get tattoo of your brand and basically LOVE your brand.
And for those looking for best practice in "social media" look no further than video games. The developers and publishers live and ie by their fans and go to great lengths to "service" them daily.
What caught my gamer eye today was Mortal Kombat. A game that is banned here in Australia.
Mortal Kombat is about to release the 9th (yes 9th! since debuting in 1992) game in the series next week and they have rolled out the big guns. A cosplay/casting video of their 3 female characters for no other reason than to give the male gamers something to fap about. I present Sonya, Mileena and Kitana. They will be at launch events taking photos with the fans all over Europe.
The videos all push to the Facebook page to vote but in my book they all win.
And if that wasn't enough how about a live action web series from Machinima for thos who like a little more back story
Here's the trailer
and the first episode. Just a fraction over 4 million views in a week. And not one article in any ad press about this "viral" success story.
Mortal Kombat is not bulletproof like the Call of Duty series so the marketing teams has to work much harder to build the buzz and I think for this game they have done everything right. The game looks great, the amount of content produced to promote the game is astounding (just check the Youtube channel and FB page)
Air New Zealand are on a "viral" video binge with two new videos released this week. First we have Richard Simmons for an in-flight video
and Snoop hooking up with Rico their muppet for a new song.
Rico's first outing late last year did quite well for Air NZ with the Happy Hour video reaching 380,000 views
Just last year they did a NZ Rugby team safety video which earned them 800,000 views.
These come 2 years after 5 million+ views to their safety video with the body painted staff
You can imagine the other airline marketing departments asking their agencies "we want to be like Air NZ" as they lust after the Youtube view counts and press generated from these endeavours.
