Barkley

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***

http://badgiftemporium.com/

Here's a fun interactive card from Barkley. Accompanied by the music box version of "Send in the Clowns," (We assume they secured the ASCAP rights and paid Stephen Sondheim his royalties), you are welcomed to the Bad Gift Emporium. Here you can snag someone else's bad gift or add your own--If only this existed in real life! (Oh wait, it does--eBay!)

(BTW, extra credit for being to turn off that appropriately annoying music!)

We love the concept of adding your own bad gift or being able to send one to a friend, but one of the sad but true realities of social media is that it is only as good as the people who participate. Upon visiting the site, one is greeted with three uploaded "bad gifts" in Spanish and a photo of someone's boyfriend with the message, "zxccvbcvx." (Perhaps the uploads should've been better moderated.)

But, persistence pays off. With some searching you can find some truly bad gifts, such as a Patriot's jacket, a Lucite "#1 Boyfriend" award, an oven mitt, a wizard and dragon fountain, and a tongue scraper. Some of these gifts sound a bit too bad to be real, and some just aren't bad--come on, those plastic Vegas coaster on page nine totally rock!

It was fun, but seeing other people's bad gifts turns out not to be quite as exciting as it sounds. We wish there had been more stories, which is what puts the whole thing into more perspective. After all, if your family sets a $10 limit on gifts, you really can't complain about the Guinea Pig Paperweight you get, can you?

VML

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***½

http://www.vml.com/handbellhero/

Here's a very good interactive card from VML. Taking off from Guitar Hero, they offer an online game called Hand Hell Hero. Hit the keys on your keyboard to match the scrolling bells, and you're rewarded with a holiday carol.

The only think keeping this card from four snowflakes was that it lacked any real scoring. Where's the fun in that? Isn't most of the fun of Guitar Hero beating your high score and challenging friends?

Exopolis

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ****

http://www.exopolis.com/holiday/2007/

We get excited when we see great interactive holiday cards, and this is one you'll want to visit. The folks at Exopolis have created an Exobotics Robo-Holiday game. Make your own robot and then hit some keys to make your robot dance. Hitting multiple keys will result in some "ill robotechniques."

As with other great holiday cards, this one says a lot about the agency without resorting to shameless self-promotion. The visual and interactive design is top-notch, and the result is a lot of fun.

Beam

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***

http://www.beamland.com/holiday07/

We love this interactive holiday card slightly more in concept than in execution. The idea of a gift-buying guide is fun, except once the page loads and plays a quick version of Jingle Bells, there's not much here other than links to some interesting products. Our favorites were the pet stroller, blinged up PEZ dispenser, and the cassette wallets.

Beam also offers downloadable and printable gift tags, which are perfect if you're seeking a tag that reads, "Happy Holidays - Thanks for addressing your body odor issue," "Happy Holidays - I want a divorce," or "Hopefully this gift is an adequate substitute for genuine intimacy."

World Wide Wadio

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***½



We're not sure this video is likely to endear clients to the agency, but it sure brought a smile to our faces! If you're going to avoid sharing any holiday sentiment, at least do it like this--with style, humor, and quality execution.

Studiocom Again

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***

http://www.studiocom.com/holidaycheer/

We're a bit confused; Studiocom seems to have offered two different interactive holiday cards this year. Both draw from the same idea of allowing the viewer to mix and match employees humming, singing, and clapping a holiday tune.

This is the better of the two. We docked the last one for featuring rapping about Studiocom's creativity, and we felt that lacked a bit of holiday spirit. This one sticks to the tune of Feliz Navidad and allows you to mix and match from a larger number of folks. It's a cute idea and its executed well with an attractive visual style.

Gripes: The same 16 bars of the tune get old quickly, and we wish we could've saved or sent our favorite music mix/combination of employees.

Closerlook

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***½

http://www.closerlook.com/company/holiday_videos/

We are not big fans of agency holiday videos because they tend to look, sound, and feel amateurish. So, we'll give credit where credit is due to Closerlook. (Yeah, we know they like to spell their name all lower case, but so what? We don't have to buy into their hubris, do we?) Even though this video features their staff, it will bring a smile to the face of people who don't know their employees.

This video manages to retain the raw feel of a well-produced CollegeHumor video with some reasonably humorous writing and acting. We laughed aloud at the lines, "I think you mispronounced 'strippers'" and "He made me shave my mustache; he said it sexually harassed him." And the ending with the destroyed Web page was quite creative and fitting.

Kudos to closerlook for pulling off the dangerous triple lutz of humor, video, and acting with success.

Publicis and Hal Riney

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***½

http://www.warmestgreetings.com/index.html

I'm noticing that many agencies this year have card that are obsessively focused on blood, butts, and poop. Apparently, the folks at agencies are all 13 years old.

At least Publicis and Hal Riney manage to bring some fun and creativity to their shit-obsessed card. And, it got us to go looking into the story they present to confirm its validity. Turns out, they're telling the truth--the Catalonians really do hide a pooping character in their manger scenes.

With this interactive card, you can send your friend a special message that ends with El Caganer ("The Great Pooper") straining and then shitting out his or her name. Yes, really--a holiday card that features your name in poop.

We're not sure it says much about the agency or about the holiday, but like the R/GA holiday card, it put a smile on our face and encouraged us to send some inappropriate messages to friends.

Mullen

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ****

http://work.mullen.com/holidays/

The first four-star holiday card of the year! This card from Mullen is a nice, fun, and playable game. You can have a live snowball fight against others over the Internet.

What sets this card apart is that it says something about the agency without literally saying something about the agency. Other cards this year lost points for focusing too much on their own employees or on conveying some sort of ad about the agency, but Mullen uses the concept, animation, and execution to do the talking and demonstrate their knowledge and capabilities.

The game has some surprising and nice touches. The music sets the mood appropriately, and the 3D gameplay is pretty darn good. You can chat with the other people who are playing the game at the same time, and you can see a map view by hitting the space bar. And inviting friends to play is easy.

Mullen got us in the holiday spirit!

Studiocom

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} **½

http://studiocom.com/ecard/ecard.html

We like the concept of playing and creating your own music, but seeing their employees dancing around, rapping, and beatboxing isn't as much fun as they seem to think it is. Still, this card encouraged me to explore and play.

Studiocom lost some points for making the song about themselves. Rapping about how cool, interactive, and creative you are isn't much of a holiday message.

Finally, maybe I'm just sensitive or too politically correct, but do you sense anything stereotypical about the people featured in this card? The black guy raps, men make most of the music, and gals generally dance around like window dressing. Maybe this is the card from Madmen and not Studiocom's 2007 card?

Carat

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} *½

http://holidaycard.caratamericas.com/holidaycheer.html

A rather uninspired effort from one of the largest ad agencies in the world. This looks like it was slapped together with about eight hours effort.

The idea of a matching game has some potential, but it takes just 15 seconds to match four pairs of holiday icons and you are rewarded with a marketing message from Carat. Their ad copy ends with "In our business, that's what we call engagement." Well, in our business this isn't what we call a "holiday card"; it's an embarrassing, heavy-handed, clumsy ad that says Carat doesn't really care to wish you a happy holidays.

No holiday sentiment, no replayability, and an overt ad for the agency--this is the worst "holiday card" we've seen this year, thus far!

R/GA

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***½

http://www.rga.com/holiday07/

We wanted to hate R/GA's holiday card, with it's obese Santa showing his corpulent, naked belly and bending over to display his butt crack, but unfortunately the fun of tattooing Santa's body was too much fun to ignore. We ended up sending all sorts of inappropriate tatts to our friends (and we don't feel good about it.)

Enjoy this tattoo in honor of George W. Bush's final year in office.

Digitas

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***

http://holiday.digitas.com/

Digitas' holiday card starts a little weak but ends on a fun and original note. At first, it just seems like some cartoon gnomes take over the Digitas home page for some animated fun. But once the animation is complete, you can enter any URL to have the gnomes take over the site of your choice. Here, for example, are the Digitas gnomes going wild on the Tribal DDB home page.

Doesn't say a whole lot, but it got us gnoming many of our favorite Web sites.

Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners.

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} **

http://www.advent-o-rama.com/

BSSP offers us an online advent calendar. Each day of the season, a new animated or movie treat is served up. We've not seen this done before, and the concept left us eager to start through our online advent calendar.

Alas, the challenge of coming up with 25 fun and original creations seems to have stressed out the folks at BSSP:

• Day One offers one of those unfunny animations featuring the faces of two people you and we don't know. (We're sure it is quite a knee-slapper for the folks inside BSSP, but for the rest of us it's like an anonymous version of JibJab.)
  
• We had to subtract an entire star for the completely tasteless Day Four video of Santa Claus being massacred by machine gun fire. We thought this inappropriate video might have some funny payoff, but there was none--just 60 seconds of a blood-splatted Santa.
• In fact, splurting blood seems to be a favorite of BSSP's. Somewhere between the Christmas Trees chopping down a human to leave bloody leg stumps and the blood oozing from a gift-wrapped package of Dead Zone Rat Poisoning ("not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse"... how amusing), the spirit of Christmas sighed, sadly shook its head, and left in search of something more meaningful (or at least funnier.)

Ambitious concept, but the blood-soaked advent calendar somehow didn't leave us laughing or wanting more.

godfrey Q and partners

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***

http://www.gqpsf.com/holidaycard2007/

We'll start the season off on the right foot. Godfrey Q and Partners offers us a fun distraction from the end-of-year stress. Pick your home, decorate it with lights and holiday accessories, and send it to a friend. We have a couple quibbles (the music we selected disappeared when we sent the card to a friend, and we were hoping for blinking decorations in all their gaudy glory), but the ability to make this card your own and share it with others makes this a worthy holiday offering.

Here is my holiday decorations, from my mobile home to yours.

We're back and assessing Ad Agency Interactive Holiday Cards

We're back and ready to evaluate 2007's batch of holiday cards from ad agencies across the country. Last year, we took many agencies--including some of the largest in the land--to task for offering Holiday cards that left us cold (no pun intended).

Given that agencies are in the business of communicating something, we found it appalling how many of them failed to communicate something effective in their own online cards. What's effective by our standards? A card that offers the following:

• Originality,
• A true sense of the season (be that sentimental, nostalgic, or funny),
  
• Interactivity,
• Design and production that speaks to the quality of the agency's work, and perhaps most importantly...
• A focus on the client/recipient rather than on the agency itself. A good holiday card can say something about the agency (and, in fact, should), but if it is filled with inside humor (only funny to those who work there) or its intent seems more to promote the agency than to express season's greetings, it fails as a holiday card. (Some agencies just can't help themselves and use every opportunity--even inappropriate ones--to sell themselves.)
  

We hope you enjoy our annual review of agency holiday cards!

Peace, Prosperity, and Smarter Marketing in 2007

We had fun reviewing and rating ad agency holiday cards this year. Next year, we may get an earlier start so we can check out the online holiday greetings of more agencies. If you know of any 2006 or 2007 online cards from marketing organizations, please post a link here!

Let me end this year with a plea to all marketing professionals: Please remember that awareness is only one of many goals for your clients. Your job isn't to plaster your clients' logos in every conceivable corner of the world but to positively change the way consumers think of your clients' brands in order to increase their purchase intent.

Consumers are beginning to revolt, and this revolution may come at a price our industry doesn't want to pay--more laws, more audits, more limitations, more lawsuits, and fewer ways to reach our targets.

Consumers are tired of the traditional forms of advertising and are TiVoing past your expensive 30-second spots, ignoring your drive-time spots in favor of their iPods, and rejecting print media in favor of online. And they are revolting against the new forms of marketing, with spam filters, online ad blockers, and blogs that give almost the same power to the unhappy individual as to the billion-dollar multi-national company.

And here's the worst part: Consumers think so little of what we do that they cannot tell the difference (or see no difference) between appropriate marketing activities and those that are illegal. In part, that's because we're erasing the line between what's right and wrong with our Flogs, fake MySpace profiles, and guerrilla WOM tactics. And in part, it's because there is little difference between the flood of spam consumers hate in their "in" boxes and the flood of presumptively legal ads we unleash upon them on floors, billboards, asses, parks, sports venues, cars, buses, trains, and body parts.

Consumers try to escape--they flee to games, and we paste advertising there. They reject the real world for Second Life, and we follow them there. They try to enjoy content, but we won't let them--contextual links within the body of online news stories and product placements make sure consumers can be exposed and annoyed by our brands and ads at every possible moment.

Just doing your job, you say? I think not, unless your job is to chase down the consumer and beat him or her bloody with a branded baseball bat.

If we don't get smart, someone will make us do so. Consumers are increasingly complaining to each other and to the government for protection. Parents are almost as eager to keep advertisers away from their children as they are to protect their kids from sexual predators.

Ladies and Gentlemen, our industry has a branding problem. And if we don't find a way to solve that problem, governments at all levels would only be too happy to do so for us.

So, you may ask yourself what that has to do with Agency Christmas Cards. Each year in December, marketing agencies get an opportunity to do something special: They get the chance to infuse themselves with the spirit of the season and show they care about the world. And what do most choose to do with that special annual opportunity? Promote themselves. Produce garbage. And reinforce every painful, immature, self-centered, crass stereotype possible.

So, when it comes time to plan your 2007 interactive holiday card, think a moment about the perception of our industry. Then think about what Christmas means to people who don't make a living selling seconds or pixels or column inches. And finally, come up with something that says something real to your clients and the rest of the world.

Good luck in 2007, and remember to keep the spirit of the season all the year through!

ID Branding

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} *^½

http://www.savethefatman.com/game.html

Yes, yes--we know ID Branding is soooo hip, soooo jaded, and soooo above the sloppy sentiments of the holiday. We can tell by their holiday card, which features a man carrying a bag of money through "North Hell," past puking polar bears, walrus hookers, cannibal gingerbread men, gay nutcracker soldiers, and, well you get the point.

This card is offensive, not so much because of the puking, the hookers and the cannibalism, but because it's a damn lazy effort. No music or sound whatsoever, no interactivity (except a single button at the end), and no wit or humor. Other than a clean and interesting visual style, there is little here that makes the visit worthwhile.

Robert/Boisen

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} **^½

http://scooter.rblm.com/

This is going to sound a bit like that Logic 101 course you hated, but here goes:

• Some VIRAL = HOLIDAY, and
• Some HOLIDAY = Viral, but
  
• VIRAL ≠ HOLIDAY

This card has an interesting viral concept and makes an important point about brevity on outdoor advertising. What does outdoor advertising have to do with the holidays, you may ask? Exactly!

This is one of those holiday cards that misses the point of the holidays and tries to say a bit too much about the agency. In other words, it's an ad. An interesting and interactive ad, to be sure, but still just an ad.

Enlighten

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***^½

http://holiday.enlighten.com

We have another winner! As with other excellent cards, this one starts with a unique concept and executes it with style. (Makes all those point-a-camcorder-and-act-funny videos look pretty lame, don't you think?)

Need a party excuse? Then here is your Holiday Party Excuse Generator. Answer a couple questions (such as the type of party and feelings about the host), and as you provide responses a snowman animates in response. Once complete, you may review, revise, or send your excuse on to a party host. (Small quibble: I wish one could cut and paste the resulting copy so that it can be edited and sent via one's own e-mail.)

I'm not sure the host of tonight's Festivus party will really believe I am meeting with the leaders of the Free World, but at least Enlighten's holiday card will save me from the airing of the grievances and feats of strength!

TheoWorlds

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***^½

http://www.theoworlds.com/christmas/

This doesn't come to us from an agency, but I wanted to include it here because it offers much the same concept as in the Carat Fusion holiday card. Both allow you to decorate a gingerbread cookie and send it on to a friend. I actually prefer this one to CF's, because it provides a bit more control and interactivity. But, CF is donating cash every time someone completes one of their cookies, so we'll call it a draw!

Catalano Lellos and Silverstein

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} **^½

http://www.cls-ny.com/happyholidays/

I was tempted to give this holiday card a slightly higher rating. After all, while they apply employees' faces to animated bodies like the unforgivable Tinsley card, they at least took the time to try to make the card interesting with intentionally crude animation. And, as we all know (since we all watch Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo), intentionally crude animation can be funny.

Problem is, this is intentionally crude animation in need of an editor! How long can you watch two badly animated characters swing back and forth on trapezes or ring bells before you just lose interest? I can answer that for you: 30 seconds!

Their card has an interesting feature that allows you to visit past years' online cards. Alas, this only serves to demonstrate that CL&S produced more interesting and interactive cards five years ago!

Pro Pacific

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x3vEUpTpQU

This animated video aims low and hits the mark. Unlike TBWA/Chiat/Day's clueless and crass holiday video, this one mines humor from inappropriate drunken party behavior. The catchy song and not-so-double entendres show some lowbrow wit, and the simple animation fits the concept.

While I appreciated the wonderfully uncouth toon, perhaps Pro Pacific should stop investing in holiday videos and start paying attention to their Web site. It is the holidays so I'll be charitable, but let's just say their site is a time machine back to the Information Superhighway circa 1998.

Animax

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} **^½

http://www.animaxinteractive.com/happyholidays/2006/peanuts/

Ever wondered what would happen if the Peanuts grew up, cut down an anthropomorphic evergreen that screamed in pain, had a flying banana decorate said tree, and finally ignited the fallen fir with a menorah? Well, wonder no more--this card is for you!

While I love the animation and really dig the music (perhaps the best soundtrack this year), the concept is just... well... it just ain't right. Charlie Brown with a goatee? A banana that flies and doesn't sing "Peanut Butter Jelly Time"? And the tree torture was almost as disturbing as James Bond's recent encounter with a seatless chair and a weighted rope.

Their second card is a King Kong spoof with Santa as the giant ape and a gingerbread girl cookie as the heroine. Great setup, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Nice animation though: http://www.animaxinteractive.com/happyholidays/2006/king_klaus/

Nice efforts, but the terminal weirdness seems more aimless than creative.

Bozell

^{Rating (1 to 4 snowflakes):} ***

http://www.bozellholidays.com/

Bozell gives us a fine holiday card concept, but the execution is a bit weak. The welcome to the site is terrific and raises one's anticipation for a great experience: Mittened hands open an envelope and remove a photo card inviting visitors to upload their favorite holiday shot.

While this idea is fun, the presentation is a bit of a yawner. First of all, since the slide show is updated just "several times a day," cannot see your own photo after its uploaded! And while you can "send to a friend," all you're sending is the site URL and not a link to your own photo. (Come on--didn't anyone at the agency see the cover of Time magazine? User-controlled content is hot, but there's no user control here!)

Lastly, this may be the only interactive holiday card to be completely and totally devoid of sound. Some holiday sounds or music might have gone a long way to enhance the experience.

This could've been a four-star card, but it lost one snowflake for the delayed upload and another for the silence. But, it gains an extra snowflake and my respect for donating to the Salvation Army for each photo uploaded.

Bozell should keep the idea but do a little work before their 2007 card holiday card is launched.