Lidl

A late entry from Lidl that manages to mock one of its rivals while also promoting its own low, low prices.

On October 1st Sainsbury’s was left red-faced when someone noticed that its staff had accidentally used an internal sales promo in a window display.

Cue much derision on Twitter.

Less than 24 hours later Lidl had responded with this excellent poster in one of its own windows. Sainsbury’s, you got served.

For more on Lidl, read my write up of its new #LidlSurprises brand campaign.

Grant’s Whisky

Grant’s Whisky has launched an international rebranding campaign that is aimed at making the drink more appealing to younger demographics.

The campaign is based around the theme of #IOU and kicked off with a two-minute film that was promoted via social channels.

It’s supposed to celebrate the idea that we’re all indebted to our friends for the support they give us throughout our lives.

Grant’s has launched the campaign in more than 40 countries including Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and Latin America.

Instagram ads

This is less of a social campaign and more of an interesting development in the world of social media advertising.

Instagram rolled out sponsored posts to UK users on 23 September with Starbucks, Cadbury, Estee Lauder, Waitrose, Channel 4 and Rimmel among the brands included in the initial trials.

None of the content team at Econsultancy has yet seen an Instagram ad while using the app, but as proof they do exist here’s one from Rimmel.

#Bendgate

We’ve all heard the news that the iPhone is flimsy and prone to bending.

Whether it’s true or not (it’s not) is irrelevant at this stage – what’s important is that several brands used it as an opportunity to score a cheap victory against Apple.

Here are a few of them…

Peugeot

To promote its new 108 model Peugeot is giving away 108 limited edition silkscreen posters via social media.

Nothing too groundbreaking there, but interestingly the car brand will be using CRM to identify and contact new 108 owners to encourage them to share a photo of them with their new car.

The first 108 people to take part using the hashtag #My108 will win one of the limited edition posters, while everyone else will receive a digital print.

Burberry

Burberry dominated London Fashion Week thanks mostly to its popular clothes and celebrity endorsements, but also in part due to its excellent social strategy.

Burberry’s LFW show was streamed on Twitter, Facebook and on its own website, so fans had no excuse not to tune in.

Focusing on Twitter, the brand published a huge number of photos showing the catwalk, behind the scenes, and the celebrity guests.

It made use of Vines, GIFs, Hyperlapse and YouTube videos to give fans intimate access to the show.

Burberry also trialled Twitter’s new ‘buy’ button, however it was only available to a select number of users in the US via Promoted Tweets.

It basically allows users to buy products directly from the tweets:

Paddy Power & Stonewall

Following a slightly mishandled attempt to get footballers to wear rainbow laces last season, Paddy Power relaunched the campaign in September with the backing of Stonewall.

The #rainbowlaces are aimed at driving a change of attitude towards LGBT people within football.

Arsenal footballers appeared in an ad supporting the campaign, which also has the backing of brands including HTC, Carphone Warehouse, Playstation, Sega, Heineken, Pepsico, BT Sport, Starbucks and Fiat.

So far the clip has more than 1m views across the Paddy Power and Stonewall YouTube accounts.

Topshop

Topshop also achieved a notable success at Fashion Week, coming second to Burberry for total social mentions.

The activity included images, videos and blog posts to promote the retailer’s various fashion shows, all using the hashtag #TopshopUnique.

The most noteworthy activity actually took place on Facebook and Instagram, where Topshop created a ‘social catwalk’.

On Sunday model Hailey Baldwin debuted three outfits in a video on Facebook before they appeared on the catwalk.

 

In another neat initiative, Topshop gave five prominent fashion Instagrammers access to its shows.

The Instagrammers’ photos were shared across Topshop’s social accounts and also appeared in the window of its flagship store in London’s Oxford Circus.

Topshop’s fans also had the opportunity to appear in the window display by posting images on Instagram using the hashtag #topshopwindow.

Rantic Marketing

Nobody came out of this episode with any credit to their name, but it’s still worthy of flagging up as an interesting social campaign.

In a nutshell, following Emma Watson’s speech on feminism at the UN a site called Emmayouarenext.com appeared with a countdown clock and the words “Never Forget, The Biggest To Come Thus Far.”

The site was branded with 4Chan’s logo which led people to believe that nude photos of the actress would be published when the clock ran down to zero.

Predictably, gullible souls on social and in the media began wailing about the injustice of it all without actually checking to see whether it was legit.

It turned out to be an underhand newsjacking campaign from a company called Rantic Marketing, which claimed to be working on behalf of celebrities to try and get 4Chan shutdown.

It’s a pathetic way of gaining media attention and didn’t gain any positive coverage for its allegedly pro-feminist cause, but it goes to show how easy it is to newsjack genuine stories via social and shift attention for your own ill-gotten gain.