Posted by Eyes Wide Open on 13 December 2011 | 0 Comments

As Christmas is only 12 days away; we have all started to reflect on the last 12 months and consider the year ahead.

2012 is set to be an important year.  The hype around the 2012 Games has well and truly begun to build, but the doom and gloom of the economy is still hanging over everyone’s heads.

With next year set to be full of highs and lows, we at EWO Towers would like to take the opportunity to look back on 2011’s marketing activities and see who ticked all the boxes and who got it, oh so very wrong!

The campaigns that we feel really got it right, included:

Waterstones
Throughout the riots in the summer, Waterstones cleverly tweeted around the events, challenging rioters to loot them as, if they stole a book, they might actually learn something.  This tapped brilliantly into the mind-set’s of Middle England, the perfect target market for the high street book store.

Tropicana
One of the team at EWO was delivered a gift from Tropicana at midday on a Wednesday, congratulating them that they had made it to the middle of the week and it was all easy going,  from here on to the weekend.

Copella
Copella, famous for its Apple Juice, has launched a campaign to save the British Apple Tree.  With 110,000 tonnes of apples produced in the UK, two thirds of apples sold in supermarkets are shipped in from Europe.  There are over 2,000 British varieties of apples – surely that must mean that there is one to suit all tastes and recipes?

The Police
The Met Police's campaign aims to raise awareness of how thieves see things with a different perspective, trying to stop the public being easy targets.  But rather than tell us, the ad tries to involve us, in a situation we can relate to, as the main character gets caught up in the conversation, becoming oblivious to surroundings and therefore, an easy target.

Honda
Honda has cleverly found a great way to use all of the content regarding its models across the internet to create an entire microsite, fuelled by, what is essentially, user generated content.  With a tongue in cheek presenter, walking you through the site, you can navigate to any specific area, see what other people are saying, and generally enjoy the experience of browsing.  We could spend many hours on this site.

E4
E4, the younger sibling to Channel 4, perfectly demonstrated the scope of social media earlier this year on Facebook.  By merely answering a question that someone had posted on the BBC Three Facebook page, the channel then became engaged with BBC Three fans, directing them to the E4 page to continue discussions.  BBC Three were too slow to realise this was happening under their nose and subsequently, looked a bit silly, missing a fantastic opportunity.  A lesson learnt in observation! Well done E4!

Intel
Earlier this year, Intel launched the Museum of Me in collaboration with Facebook.  It gave everyone with a Facebook profile the opportunity to have their very own exhibition.  Emotive music, status updates and memorable photos, all showed us how it is our friends, family and relationships which define a large part of us.  Touching.

The campaigns that got it wrong included:

Sony Ericsson Xperia 20.22 Moment
Sony Ericsson has been running a TV advert for the new Xperia handset which ends by asking what you are doing for your 20.22 moment.  However, we can’t help but think that Sony Ericsson is missing a trick by having no social media call to action for consumers to share their 20.22 moment.  What a missed opportunity!!

Supermarkets’ Deceiving Price Drops
Supermarkets have been slated in the press this week, as they have sensationally slashed all of their prices so consumers feel that they are getting a great deal.  However, it now seems that the supermarkets had hiked up the prices previously to make it look like an incredible deal.

Television Product Placements
Since the regulations were relaxed in February, only a handful of product placement deals have been signed.  Brands have failed to use the opportunity of paying to place their products within television shows.  Whilst it’s still early, time will tell whether this will improve, but stats are not looking positive.

Nature Valley's Maths Fail
Embarrassingly, Nature Valley got their sums epically wrong in an advert on the front cover of the Metro, seen by thousands of people on a daily basis.  The advert suggested that they were going to increase deliciousness by 200% by adding another slice to their bar!! Whilst some highlighted that doubling the number of slices was not a 200% increase, others questioned how giving more product would increase the deliciousness?  Umm, someone needs to go back to school!

M&S Sponsoring the XFactor
M&S seem to have this all wrong.  We question whether the target market is right for M&S and the constant cutting and changing of the Christmas ad has confused and annoyed viewers.  Controversially, Amelia Lily replaced Misha B on the end credit before Misha was even voted off, raising concerns that the show was fixed.