Most read: John Lewis #ManOnTheMoon Christmas ad
Unless you're living on the moon, you will have already seen the John Lewis Christmas ad. Scratch that, if you live on the moon you're the star of the John Lewis Christmas ad.
Marketing's Sara Spary has . But what do people think?
Marketing has collected some , which range from Leo Rayman, chief strategy officer at Grey, who said: "This year's AGE UK tie-up is a worthy cause and seems far less incidental", to Chris Hassel, founder, Ralph, who commented: "If John Lewis is happy that they've made an expensive ad to promote awareness of Age UK then bravo. [...] However, it's pretty bleak for a middle class retailer promoting themselves at Christmas."
David Carr, strategy director at DigitasLBi, is more fulsome with his praise, not least because, "There's also no Lily Allen this year, which is great".
And if ±±¾©Èü³µpk10's is anything to go by, the ad industry is (mostly) a bunch of softies who are right now calling their nan.
For deeper analysis, Mark Fairbanks, ECD at Havas Worldwide London, unpicks for Marketing.
Christmas ad roundup: M&S, Boots, etc. etc.
Why anyone would release a Christmas ad on the same day as John Lewis is beyond us, but many did. Sit back, relax, and let the season wash over you.
Last Christmas ad entry (promise): Five tips to make your Christmas ad an online hit
The busy elves at video ad tech company Unruly have compiled a handy this festive season – or let's face it, next season's. Here's the short version:
- Make it emotional: Videos that elicit strong emotional responses are twice as likely to be shared than those that elicit weak emotional responses.
- Get into the Christmas spirit: John Lewis's penguin ad successfully tapped into "the feelings that are the most likely to resonate around that time of the year".
- Support very shareable content with paid views to drive shares.
- Don’t hide your brand: "Research has found there’s no relationship between how much sharing a video attracts and the level of branding it has. Nor does overt branding make a video less emotionally impactful."
- Don’t waste your cash on celebs: Celebrate the average Joes and Janes instead. A lot of the most popular Christmas ads last year featured just ordinary people, such as Tesco’s "Wigan light show" by Wieden & Kennedy London.
Opinion: Facebook is suffering an irrelevance crisis
Anthony Rose, the former boss of iPlayer (thanks, guy) and founder of a social network called 6Tribes, thinks Facebook's strong results posting yesterday misses a key problem with individual-based networks.
He said: "As social networks continue to balloon with users and content – editorial and advertorial – the amount of genuinely valuable or enjoyable posts we encounter every day is shrinking."
I recently tested this hypothesis with a YouGov study we commissioned. The results were terrifying. Over half (58%) of millennials in the UK say at least half of the posts they see in their news feed every day are ‘irrelevant’, i.e. about things they don’t care about or are indifferent to. That’s a whole lot of noise to filter out every minute we spend on a social network.
This irrelevance crisis is also damaging the user experience on social networks. Nearly one in two millennials online (44%) find these irrelevant posts ‘boring’ and nearly a third (32%) ‘irritating’. Other words people used included ‘infuriated’, ‘angry’, ‘upset’ and ‘violated’.
The problem, Rose thinks, is that your interests don't match other people's 100% of the time, but there's nothing better out there. The answer is topic based social platforms, like (ahem) 6Tribes.
The logic's seductive, but we're not entirely convinced. How about you? . Consider it an early Christmas present.
Party photos: Marketing's Power 100
Who is in the Marketing Power 100? You won't know them all until the end of November when the next issue of Marketing hits, but we did learn something from party.
For instance, we now know Arnd Pickhardt, the advertising and marketing director of Lidl, is on it. Pickhardt was voted the Marketers’ Marketer of the Year by the members of the list.
For clues of who else is included, read and scan the below video and photos from last night's launch party for clues.
Compiled by Jonathan Shannon
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