2014 Review. Happy New Year 2015.

I hope 2014 was good  to you and that you’ve been enjoying this holiday season. I’ve established a end-of-the-year tradition which is to write my last post of the year as a review of what I’ve written about during the past year. I feel it’s a nice way for us all to reflect on the past year before we look forward to what the new year will bring.

So here’s a look back at some of the top posts from this blog that I felt reflected either a major shift in the promotional marketing industry, a new trend or a personal or business highlight.  I have written 47 blog posts this past year, including this one, which is almost one a week, published mostly on Wednesdays.

January – Intuit’s Small Business Big Game Contest winner is one Super Bowl Ad we haven’t seen yet – My January posts mostly cover the Super Bowl and all the marketing, advertising and promotions that go with it. Super Bowl 48 was the first in a cold-weather outdoor stadium that most of us could ever recall while we also were experiencing some really COLD winter temperatures.  Most of the advertisers decided this past year to post their spots online before the game, except for Intuit. The small business contest winner’s ad was broadcast during the game for the first time and the winner was Goldie Blox. Check out their ad here.

February – Thank You Mom Campaign from P&G Scores Gold at the Olympic Games – Sochi hosted the Winter Olympic Games and Team USA had an amazing year. What was so special about the games was hearing some of the personal stories of the athletes. P&G’s “Pick Them Back Up” TV spot hit the emotional nail on the head. As of today it has over 20 million views here on YouTube.

March – Video contest from Experience Kissimmee Utilizes Instagram – Instagram had an amazing year and this was one of the first posts of the year I wrote highlighting a video contest we worked on for Kissimmee Florida.  Instagram recently announced that they hit 300 million monthly users, up from 200 million from March, and have now surpassed Twitter.

April – Tourism Australia offers 52 chances to visit now, not Someday – I worked with Australia Tourism and their agency to help launch the Someday campaign. It was in partnership with Virgin Australia and Delta Airlines, their first joint U.S. marketing campaign, which gave away 52 amazing trips to Australia. Each trip was valued at $7,800 totaling over $400K in prizes. Many of the lucky winners will be taking their trip well into 2015.

May – FTC publically addresses compliance violation with Pinterest contest – the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) updated its Endorsement Guidelines after it completed an investigation into a Pinterest-based contest conducted by Cole Haan. The ruling impacts all social media promotions, particularly those that encourage user-generated content to be created and shared, and not just on Pinterest, but all other social media platforms.

June –  Contests, Games, Hashtags and Videos promote the 2014 Word Cup –  Once team USA won it’s first match against Guana US fans got very excited about the games and helped to make it the most social sporting event ever. John Brooks became a star overnight and his #daretodream posts. However, it was the Germans that walked away with the final trophy. We’ll see what we can do in Russia in 2018.

July – Hershey’s Experience Sweepstakes from Menchie’s launches and Shortstack introduces their new Campaign Builder – With this summer promotion I was able to use my favorite Facebook app to create a sweepstakes campaign that not only was installed to a Facebook page, but existed online as well. This sweepstakes campaign collected entries from both methods all going into one database.

August – Facebook no longer Likes a Like-Gate – Facebook announced in early August that it would no longer allow apps that make it mandatory to like the page in order to enter a promotion. They gave developers 90 days to adapt to the change that officially went into effect on November 5. Most recently they have also announced that they will restrict Facebook status updates from pages that strictly promote entering a promotion.

September – Rules, Guidelines and Etiquette of Business Social Media – After attending the 3rd Annual Summit on Digital Advertising Compliance for Social Media, Sweepstakes & Promotion in NYC in early September, I came away with the fact that there are so many grey areas when it comes to social media. So I included a infographic in this post titled “How to Mind Your Manners on Social Media” and still feel that it rings so true.

October  -#CheckYourself, new music video from Avon honoring Breast Cancer Awareness month Each October in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month I write a least one post promoting the cause. This year it was about a powerful PSA from the Avon Foundation for Women which featured a new music video created with and by Paula Abdul along with Alex Cairo, a young and up and coming copywriter who wrote the lyrics and is the daughter of  Gene Cairo, the President of American Sweepstakes Company.

November – Sweepstakes, Contests, Disclosure & Digital/Social Media Updates from the Annual Marketing Law Conference – I was back again in Chicago for the 36th Annual Marketing Law Conference hosted by the BAA/PMA. This post includes a summary of what Linda Goldstein from Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, aka the Sweepstakes Diva, shared with us.

December – Cheddar’s Cafes Home for the Holidays Contest invites Brand Advocates to vote – During the month of December I wrote about several Holiday promotions that we were working on for clients. This one from Cheddar Cafes involved a essay contest that included voting. They received 1,350 entries and the winner, Ross Kelly, has her story posted on their Facebook page.

I hope you enjoyed the review. Thanks again for reading! I wish you a very Happy New Year and here’s to a wonderful, healthy and prosperous 2015.

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