Hello to you! I am the new intern here at Rocket. Has anyone had any ‘newbie’ stories? It would be horrible if your car didn’t start one morning on your second week, as the ‘newbie’ wouldn’t it? Yep that happened to me this morning! Note to any new starters out there, get RAC cover just in case, it really is a lifesaver!! Thank the lord (literally) for the long Easter Weekend! Talking of Easter, I thought it would be fun if I wrote a blog about Easters campaigns, the good the bad and the ugly.

We salute you…

The king of Easter campaigns has to be Cadbury, with their Cadbury Crème Egg campaigns ‘how do you eat yours?’ Have a fling with a Crème Egg and a range of other greats! Everyone will remember these and they may even remember the different themes to the adverts that have been used over the years. This tiny little egg IS Easter, it declares the beginning of Easter, that tiny ball of fun DECLARES Easter! WOW that is a whole lot of power! Even if you don’t like Crème Eggs you just have to pick up one. I bet if you all thought about it, every Easter when you see those little Eggs appear, you have brought one and it is almost exciting! Cadbury’s campaigning over the years has made their brand the highlight and the declaration of Easter every single year how absolutely amazing is that! Well done Cadbury, we salute you!

A bug-bare…

For us all to take in this Easter WCRS have created the new B&Q TV advert that came to our screens on 4th April. It was the agencies first work with the brand, backed by an EGGcellent £10m investment. The campaign is aimed at EGGing people to do some Easter DIY. The TV ads strap line is “unleash the B&Q in you”. With the soundtrack ‘I’ve Got The Power’ by Snap (I’m too young to know who these are but I recognise the song. I think some of the older ones here at Rocket will know who they are!)

Conversely, I believe it is one of the most annoying TV adverts to have hit our screens this Easter. There is nothing remotely ‘Easter’ about it! A creative director at WCRS suggested “Nobody wants to been seen as someone with a moping, can’t do attitude. Everyone wants to be seen as a can do person, someone with a little B&Q in them.” I don’t think so! Not with this advert anyway and definitely not with B&Q!! I’m definitely not the only person who isn’t quite ‘feeling this’ advert this Easter! The guys behind B&Q’s social media have tried to engage customers however; they are simply giving customers more of a platform to complain. B&Q tried to engage people with their new advert; people didn’t engage with this they simply shared their awful customer experiences! Nice one B&Q!

The advert itself isn’t my only bug-bare, the advert doesn’t make their customer experience any better. On many review sites, including their OWN Facebook page it is inundated with bad comments about their customer service. Working with the guys at Rocket along with studying a Marketing degree for the last two years has made me more aware just how important customer experience is to a brand. Bad customer experience can be extremely damaging to a brand. It annoys me that B&Q are spending so much time and money on this silly TV advert and nothing into bettering their customer experience!

Tweet all about it…

It’s not all doom and gloom! I recently did a piece of writing on the importance to brand of becoming more digitally focused. I’ve have now learnt from a practical side working with the guys at Rocket, the pressure for companies to become more digitally focused.

I want to praise Asda for their Easter campaign. Their campaign has been digitally focused. Their ‘Something to Tweet about’ Easter campaign stars this cute little chick. Combined with the little chic is a traditional TV ad to support the campaign, however people are encouraged to engage more so through social media to create a personalized chick by choreographing the chicks moves and selecting an accompanying dance track. Using the #AsdaChick hashtag.

Asda have successfully got the balance with their Easter campaign, their TV advert is still as much a bid for people to chose Asda for their pricing. The advert includes four different coloured birdhouses representing the four different supermarkets (the corporate bit) but they complemented this really well with their digital interaction also. Asda, have played on their belief that “Easter has always been a time for celebration, with families all over the UK getting together to share in the occasion.” The game drew 30,000 comments and 5,200 likes, proving that social media is a key player in the brand’s future advertising strategies. Can this be a lesson for brands that don’t have a lot of digital engagement? I think so.

Have a happy Easter folks!