How three very different brands gained social success by creating Facebook campaigns that engaged users and got them talking

In our Facebook marketing guide we share lots of examples of practical techniques for businesses to achieve their goals. We're always on the lookout for new examples to share, so we 'put our heads together' in our team to share those we liked best from this year. We'd be interested to know which campaigns you rate from this year, please share to Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. The examples we have chosen are all remarkable for getting cut-through and engagement to support the goals of the organisation. Thinking of our RACE planning framework,  Facebook (and other social networks) can support all the parts of the customer lifecycle goals from achieving reach, encouraging interactions, generating conversion and customer engagement. We have chosen these three examples since they achieve these across very different categories.

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25 of the best and the worst Christmas adverts from 2017, with reviews from the Smart Insights team

The battle for the most popular Christmas advert is underway. It has been reported that UK companies will spend an estimated £5.6bn on marketing in the run-up to Christmas. While prime television spots alone are expected to attract a spend of £1.3bn. From Tescos to John Lewis we cover the best and the worst of Christmas adverts for 2017.

Marks & Spencer

Marks and Spencer have used a well-known character, Paddington bear, as part of their Christmas advert this year. They have launched a fully integrated campaign using the hashtag, #LoveTheBear, accompanied by its own paw emoji. The campaigns' aim according to M&S’s Marketing Director, Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne was: 'We have to break through that mood of the nation, which is why the campaign plays into something much warmer and more heartfelt. As we see every year,…

From the politically driven to the funny, our favorite adverts of 2017 so far

We look at some of the best ads from 2017 so far. We have featured some of the most clever, moving and funny ads from the year. We also feature ads that have been thought-provoking covering some of the more controversial topics this year such as politics, immigration, and gender issues. Here are our top 25...

KFC Cauliflower Burger

When KFC's #cleaneating burger hit Facebook, the video went viral. Poking fun at healthy living influencers and the #cleaneating community, the advert features fake 'influencer', Figgy Poppleton-Rice.  Thankfully, the clean eating burger was a spoof, its real purpose to launch their new 'The Dirty Louisiana' burger.

Skittles 'Romance the Rainbow' Superbowl Ad 2017

Superbowl is one of the biggest advertising opportunities in the US, costing around 5million for a 30-second slot. Only the biggest and best brands…

Examples of the best brand Instagram accounts and what we can learn from them

It's clear that Instagram isn't just a social network for posting cool views with filters or the odd selfie anymore. Instagram now has a whopping 700 million monthly active users and has evolved into a platform that can visually represent a brand. There are some brands out there that are doing really well on Instagram and we wanted to see why they are so successful. Use these 6 brands to help inform your own Instagram strategy and hopefully inspire you.

Adidas

A obvious brand to start with is Adidas. With over 15 million followers they have a very high influence within Instagram. They use their Instagram account to generate awareness of the brand and their range of products.  They do this by sharing visual content and videos to drive more enthusiasm for Adidas products. Every image includes an adidas product,…

Interactive, creative and innovative emails to inspire your 2017 email marketing.

Email marketing consistently ranks as one of the most effective marketing channels in terms of ROI. But to stand out in a crowded field you need to optimise for device, utilise the latest technology, and have compelling creative. Without any of this crucial trio your email will fall flat. It's all very well telling marketers they need to use dynamic email with creative designs and attention grabbing copy, but it's very different to actually produce it. Often the best way to get inspiration for your own campaign is to see examples of effective email campaigns that you can draw upon. That's way we're giving you 6 examples of creative and effective dynamic content emails to inspire you in 2017.

1. Knomo - Scalable design for mobile optimization

As you can see from the desktop and mobile versions of this email from Knomo, by…

How I boosted my lead generation with visitor tracking software, in conjunction with blogging, pay per click, email and social media outreach.

When you’re growing an audience, and converting website visitors into customers, you need a watertight marketing funnel.

The sad truth is that most of us convert less than 5 per cent of our website visitors into contacts, meaning that more than 95% of visitors leave our sites, potentially never to be seen again.

So what steps can we take to improve our website marketing, tighten up our funnel, and generate more leads from what we have already?

I faced this challenge earlier this year, and have written this post to share my experience with you. 

My website was only four months old, so I had insufficient visitor data in Analytics, and I was up against a tight deadline. My challenge was that I needed to…

Tips for integrating video as part of content marketing

"The next big thing in content marketing is video,"

...so said, nearly everyone in 2013.

Rather than attempt to convince you of this as a consumer of brands or a business, in this article I'd like to show and advise as to how as part of integrated content strategy, video content can work hard for you and deliver results.

The growing popularity of online video

Online video is big business and it's visibility and the demand for it is statistically astounding. The Content Marketing Institute report the following stats to help paint a picture:

On-line video has increased eightfold in five years.In 2016 the gigabyte equivalent of all the movies ever made in the history of film will move across networks every 3 minutes.It will take 6million years to watch all the video that will uploaded in one month, in 2016.Video will be 55% of all internet…

Campaign example: Tesco's  #FindtheEggs campaign

It's nearly Easter, so the perfect time for online campaign to drive footfall into stores competing for shoppers big pre-holiday shop. We thought Tesco's #FindtheEggs campaign was nicely planned and executed, so worth sharing. Here's what we liked:

1. It's a mashup with purpose -using Google Maps

2. It's personalised - you're encouraged to search by postcode.

3. It's easy - needed to encourage sale

4. It's time-limited to encourage action

5. It helps build the email list

6. It's viral

So we found it "remarkable"! It's likely not being pushed online, maybe as part of a test,…