Happy Easter everyone !

As a National Bank Holiday in the UK and many other countries in the world, I thought  I would post a slightly ..lighter article today…and what better a topic to discuss than this years’ Easter ads and campaigns across all advertising platforms.

Retail spending was expected to sales of over £4 billion – almost 3 times more than last years sales –  over the Easter weekend in the United Kingdom and brands were working overtime to “cash in” over the festive period.

So let’s have a look at the Best and Worst of this years’ Easter marketing and the creative emotional efforts that triggered our buying decisions.

The Best

Cadbury’s Egg Hunt

Cadbury’s launched its Great British Egg Hunt on April the 14th in partnership with the National Trust and National Trust for Scotland. The festive promotional campaign, invited families to join various egg hunts across the United Kingdom.

Each location was a unique experience as it offered “egg-hunters” a personalised egg hunt, each linking back to each of the properties’ unique stories. There were a variety of very interesting and creative themes used,  all leading to a Cadbury Egg treat as a final reward.  All money raised goes back into conserving these unique landmarks and locations.

Launching this campaign nonetheless, did not come without its difficulties. Cadbury’s were accused of “airbrushing faith” and had to even come out with a statement defending its campaign. It was however on the “lighter” side with a number of “Egg punts” used to brush the accusations off as “pure nonsense”.

Click on the image below to find out more details.

Wickes “Buy it Now..Do it Later”

Bank holiday weekends, holiday and off course..Easter. This tends t be the time we all -somewhat unwillingly- choose to do all those jobswe have been putting off during he past year. Its DIY Week. You would consequently think that retailers such as B&Q, Wickes and Argos would capitalise on exactly this tendency.

However, as part of its Easter campaign, Wickes took a somewhat unlikely approach. The brand actually encouraged all us “hopeful DIYers” to put off the DIY jobs for a later date, with the launch of ‘The Buy Now, Do It Later Sale’.

The campaign – which run during the Bank holiday Easter weekend, encouraged consumers to take advantage of a 15% Easter discount, without putting off their well-deserved relaxing. They advised customers to enjoy their family time and festivities and leave the DIY for a later date whilst taking advantage of their discount offer.

A recent brand research indicated that 85% of home “improvers” start a project over a bank holiday weekend, but rarely finish their work abandoning midway through. It was hence an ambitious effort to drive sales whilst not affecting consumers’ holidays and at the same time aligning themselves with a common trend.

The Brand chose multichannel marketing for this years festive marketing strategy and hence the ad will run across Radio, TV, Print and digital channels.

Hotel Chocolat Floating Ester Egg

As Hotel Chocolat like to emphasise in their Blog “It’s quite a sight”. This April, Hotel Chocolat run its “Beau Bunny” Easter campaign (amongst others) which included a somewhat large Bunny, dressed very dapper, touring the country with a larger-than-life Easter egg that really floats. Beau Bunny is back for his fifth Easter tour, and this time he’s lifting gigantic eggs as well as spirits all across the UK above six mystery locations across the UK. Do you recognise the mystical place pictured above? Name our secret location in order to get their hands on some Fine basket of chocolate Easter gifts.

The campaign earned widespread recognition and was definitely very well organised and orchestrated with hundreds taking place up and down the country. Most definitely my favourite ad even though I did not get to win any prizes..ok..maybe I did indulge on a couple (3…4…5) Hotel Chocolat bars this weekend.

Click on the image below to read more about their campaign.

The Worst

Tesco Good Friday Ad

Tesco has once again produced a Blunder on a festive period.

The creatives behind the Supermarket-giant produced a campaign in the run-up to Easter, promoting “great offers on beer and cider”. This however was not the ” contagious” issue. That was their next sentence which said “Good Friday just Got Better” .

Vicar and broadcaster, the Reverend Richard Coles, noted that the advert was “extraordinarily and unnecessarily ignorant”. Twitter also went “off” and Tesco quickly tried to retract their error.

“Good Friday” is a religious event for Christians across the world, commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Many mark the day by fasting, which can include abstaining from eating meat or drinking alcohol until Easter Sunday.

Tesco have since  apologised for any offence from a beer advertisement that claimed “Good Friday just got better” and said they would not run it again as it clearly caused controversy amongst a variety of religious circles.

You can read their public apology to the BBC by clicking below

The above are obviously only my personal ideas and views on this years’ campaigns, so feel free to email me more details of campaigns you thought were appealing, different or simply attracted your interest.

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