....some Christmas campaign ideas.

Well it’s that time of year again and there is no escaping the fact that Christmas is just around the corner. The Christmas ads have started and there is a box of quality street for sale on every street corner. Boots have launched their infamous 3 for 2 offer and I’m sure we’ve got months of ‘here come the girls... girls’ to look forward to again. I had a near death experience with a piece of discarded tinsel in Homebase on Sunday whilst shopping for paint... yes it’s definitely that time of year again.

When it comes to Christmas shopping there are many types of Christmas shopper. Maybe you are an ‘Aunt Liz shopper’ who did all of her Christmas shopping in the January sales last year, or are you the ‘Facebook status Christmas shopper’ who has already bought 3 presents, 5 cards and one roll of wrapping paper and counting! If you're like me ‘Michael one day Christmas shopper’ you give one Saturday in mid December to bulk buy gift vouchers and wrap them up that night during X Factor. The advantage with a gift voucher is that it also doubles up as Christmas card so a bit of paper and a bow and you are done. Or are you a ‘Mark last minute Christmas shopper’ who saves it all up for the Christmas eve afternoon rush?

Anyway I digress and so moving on to the reason for this article – Christmas campaigns.

This year I have been given the enviable title of Codegent Christmas campaign project manager. If it was a case of buying some cards or sending a bulk email then it wouldn’t be worth mentioning. But in true Codegent fashion the answers to my initial briefing questions were as follows:

Will it integrate with social media – yes

Will it have user generated content – of course

Will it have an api feed – I’m sure it will.

So it looks like November is now classified as busy!

Before we get started on this year’s campaign I thought I would do a bit of digging around to see what I could find on Christmas campaigns and share some of my findings with you.

1 - Elf yourself
The Elf yourself campaign has been going for  a few years now and is always extremely popular. It is currently closed until the next ‘holiday season’ however click here for a nice video of what you can do with it.

2 - Origami Christmas tree
A nice Blue Peter style make your own tree with animation and step-by-step instructions.

3 - Christmas feed
This site searches for keywords from various online platforms and displays the results as a feed.

4 - Charity message
This is a nice little twist on the charity Christmas message and not a goat in sight!

5 - Christmas games
A couple of Christmas themed games which could be built around any product or service. Give the Snow Line one a go when you have a few minutes to spare.
Thin Ice
Snow Line 

6 - Microwave the Christmas carol
This was one of my favourites from last year as it feels innovative and really stands out.

7 - Augmented reality Christmas tree
And finally probably the best one from last year! Our augmented reality Christmas campaign.

8 – Apps anyone?
I did have a look in the iphone app store but have to say that I was a bit underwhelmed – however it is still early days and I have no doubt there will be some great Christmas themed ones appearing soon. I did come across one. The iTree snowglobe updates over the weeks to show the different stages of Christmas. You can also shake your phone and see the snow flakes fall.

Hopefully the list above gives you some ideas about what you could potentially do for your campaign. Christmas is a great opportunity to get creative, however, before you start planning how many reindeer will be in the chorus line, don’t forget that like with any campaign it’s important to decide what you are looking to achieve and set your objectives first. Is it to generate sales over Christmas? Is it to raise awareness of your product / service? Is it to give your stakeholders or supporters an update on what you have achieved in the last quarter? Also don’t forget that funny is good but your campaign must reflect your brand and positioning as well as the product or services you provide.

Finally Christmas is a busy and competitive market - make sure that your campaign stands out from the crowd, for the right reasons!

This is your official ‘65 days until Christmas’ warning, look out for our Christmas campaign in December and get in touch if you would like some help delivering it!

Exciting times here at Codegent, we've just completed and launched a new website for Nickelodeon.

Nickelodeon presented us with an interesting challenge, they needed a website that could showcase their on-air summer content. This content consisted of (amongst other things) a competition to find SpongeBob Square Pants' biggest fan. Here's an example of one of our favourite entries so far. The other main part of the site was TEENick, a magazine style show aimed at teenage girls.

The challenge came in finding a way to create a cohesive site that would encourage the 2 different audiences to engage and interact with these seemingly disparate elements.

We wanted to incentivise people to travel through to the different parts of the site so we designed 5 SpongeBob cards that we 'hid' on various pages. When a user found a card they could click on it and were then given the option to download and print the card. 4 of the 5 cards incorporated a marker which, when printed and held up to a webcam, would display a 2D message from a character from SpongeBob. Finding the fifth card unlocked an augmented reality, 3D SpongeBob which the user could interact with by pressing their space bar. You can view a demo of the SpongeBob AR here:

These cards helped us to tie the site together and to generate page impressions, however we didn't want to incentivise people to travel through the site if we couldn't be sure that they were engaging with the content, so we constructed a points system that rewarded good behaviour, such as commenting, rating entries, entering the competition etc. Points are accumulated during the visit and when you reach certain milestones you unlock Nickelodeon 'goodies'.

We also wanted the user to feel a bond with the site which is why we added a badge creator. This allows users to create a badge with their unique username and design, this badge is displayed whenever they leave comment on an article. Here's an example of the badges in action.

The competition has had hundreds of entries and from the stats we've got so far, page impressions and time spent on site is looking good. The augmented reality aspect has had great feedback in terms of how it looks but also how it gives the user something new, exciting and valuable in exchange for their time and attention.

Definitely something we want to do again soon!