Sketch Loves... Festive Advert Blockbusters

A good Christmas advert is a truly magical thing; it can turn a sour grape into a sobbing mess, i.e. John Lewis’ instalment last year, or simply let you know that it’s time to start feeling festive (although personally I feel no Christmas adverts are allowed until after bonfire night, at least).

But let’s not forget the aim of these such adverts: if they pull on our heart strings in some way, we may build an emotional connection with the brand and remember them next time we’re looking to buy that special something for that special someone.

Setting that cynicism to one side, (just for now) let’s take a look at a few festive blockbuster that spring to Sketch’s mind.

One that most females in the office may be able to relate to is this year’s ’12 Days of Christmas’ by Warehouse. If you haven’t seen it yet, I would recommend watching it before your work Christmas party as watching it after may result in unnecessary cringing.

And whilst we anticipate the arrival of ‘The Snowman and The Snowdog’, do you remember the Irn Bru remake?!

Moving away from traditional advertising, Homebase must have seen our post on 'A Good Bus Stop', as they've added a 3D interactive Christmas Tree to a bus stop in Ruislip to promote one of its stores. A combination of twinkly lights and QR codes entice passers-by with the opportunity to win through its innovative display.

But they’re not the only ones trying something new. If you watched the X-Factor final you may have seen an invitation by Intel to Shazam their advert and upload a Christmas message that may have been broadcast at the end of the show. You can read more about the technicalities of this ingenious partnership here.

And back to one of our feel good favourites, one from Christmas powerhouse Marks and Spencer, all the way back in 2009 with plenty of household celebrities and double-entredes to keep us suitably smiley.

And from the good, straight over to the damn right ugly. What is this atrocity?

Why ‘fix’ something that isn’t broken? #BRINGBACKGEOFFRY!

Sketch Loves... Pinterest

Wow. Having discovered Pinterest in recent months, we are now officially hooked.

It’s a visual catalogue of everything you've ever wanted on the web, neatly organised into boards; your boards, and others’ boards – sharing and discovering with others that have similar interests.

For anyone who doesn’t know, here’s a nice little breakdown of how it works – credit goes to thelinkbuilders.com for this one:

1) When someone likes an image on a website they can pin it back to a board they’ve created on the Pinterest site. These boards can be named anything but fall under categories designated by the Pinterest team, like weddings/events, home décor, travel, etc.

2) Individuals can see pins by people whose boards they are following, or by searching through the most popular pins (most repinned), by category, by search term, or by price. If a user has typed in the price of the object in the comment area it will also appear on the top left corner of the image (this only happens when the dollar sign is typed into the comment area. No other money symbol – like € or £ – makes the price appear on the pin).

3) Every image has a comment area, link, and options to like or repin. Viewers can visit the site that housed the original image by clicking on the image or on the URL in the top right corner of the image.

On our Pinterest account we’ve currently got 8 boards. As expected, they are mostly events and design led, but the opportunities for inspiration are endless:

But who else is using Pinterest? Back in February, US agency Modena put some stats together that help create a picture of who’s pinning:

As the infographic illustrates, there are plenty of brand using Pinterest. But what are they doing there? There’s obvious SEO potential, and an opportunity to display more ‘stuff’ from your site, but users aren’t always going to want to engage with that kind of content. So clever brands make boards that are insightful and reflect the interests of their audience.

ASOS, for example, has 23 boards ranging from Christmas, beauty, current trends and competitions.

But not all brands fit the Pinterest format, forcing them to think outside the box. Take Coca Cola, who ask users to help them discover ‘moments of happiness ’ by sharing photos. A little soppy perhaps, but all in all, Pinterest...we like you.