I'm sure many of you have already seen the fantastic Coca-Cola campaign - coke, diet coke and coke zero bottles inviting you to 'Share a Coke with [insert name]'. This campaign, which shows bottles with 150 of the UK's most popular first names branded on them, is to encourage people to share the drink with their loved ones and enjoy it with friends. I have to say, I felt very special when my friend took this photo and sent it to me: Such a brilliant idea that pushes both sales and consumer emotion. I rarely buy Coke but if I happen to see one with a friend's name on it, I will buy it for them. It's such a tiny gesture which appeals to people in a massive way. This campaign works great socially. If your name isn't one of the top 150, don't fret, you can create your own virtual can on Facebook  and still make someone feel special. It encourages thousands of people to take photos and pose with their bottles, share images and tag photos - th...

The reason I haven't written a post in a week is because I recently got myself a new job. I am now the Social Media Community Manager for Lucozade Sport, Revive and Energy. ... ... .. ...just pausing for a small applause there. Anyway, I am always either on a computer or my smartphone but my boyfriend is the complete opposite. He has no idea about Facebook or Twitter, and his phone is a beaten up old Nokia. Although technology is my life and career, I think it's brilliant and refreshing that he doesn't care about being involved or in touch with any of it. He will never be someone like this: Even though I am like that myself, I appreciate the fact that I had a whole childhood without it. I got my first brick phone when I was 13, and only started using social media at the age of 18 when I created my first MySpace account. I feel sad to think that 5 year olds have Facebook and that children are brought up heavily relying on technology. Anyway, the main reason...

It's a Sunday/Bank Holiday so I will take a day off from brain activity. However, I did want to have a post just celebrating my achievement of 10,000 blog views! I started this blog in July 2011 and it has been a great platform for me to speak, show my work and motivate myself. When I first thought of getting a blog I thought perhaps it was too late to start, but my friend told me to just get on with it rather than waste time worrying about whether I should have one or not. STATS!  In the past 23 months I have written 85 posts.  The top-read posts of all time have been 'Disney's Top Hottest Males'- 471 views, 'Facebook Funnies' - 321 views, Pussy is for Women' - 270 views, and 'Chelsea FC's new kit ad' - 175 views. Most of my audience have been from the UK totalling at 5494 views, closely followed by the US who made up 2228 of the views. Other random places my blog has been viewed are Germany, Russia, France, Latvia, Italy and Canada.  ...

Stop me if any of these look familiar.... You've probably clicked 'like' or answered these photos then sat there waiting eagerly for the magic to happen, only to shed a quiet tear over the fact that life remained as it was. Meanwhile somewhere in the world, a scammer is making a little profit on your gullibility. These pages are created to boost their comments, likes and fans into the thousands, then are sold to companies for their business. The company will then change all the info and bam, that unknown company has some mega super following on Facebook and it makes their online presence soar! If you wanted to like J Beebs for instance, which group are you most likely to click like? Having a strong online following immediately builds credibility. But does this mean anything, really? Having worked in SEO, I know how much clients rely on numbers; number of views, number of sales, and number of increased traffic. Clients also love to see evid...

It's safe to say that there are many great charities in the world, pulling together for massive causes that could help millions of people. However it's just not possible to give money to them all, which is why charities have to go the extra mile with ads showing us the worst possible scenes; a beaten woman, a cat with no limbs or a child covered in flies. I think it is also safe to say that, as a viewer, we have become immune to these kinds of images. We all know what horror goes on in the world, but it's shown so regularly in the same ways that unfortunately it isn't as hard hitting any more. These ads rarely make us reach for the phone and act. A year or so ago I wrote a post about the first charity ad that had my full attention, NSPCC's - 'The Shit Kids Say' . Now I have been moved by Breast Cancer's Race for Life ad, 'Up Yours, Cancer'. Instead of the usual plee and sadness, it focuses on the strength of women and their fight for life.  ...

So Margaret Thatcher died and I never realised how strongly everyone felt about her. For the entirety of my life, no one I knew ever spoke of her. No one spoke of their hatred of her or their feelings about her impact on Britain. No one felt the need to bring up their seemingly extreme views on Thatcherism and 1980's politics. Yet, last week when Thatcher died, everyone suddenly exploded with opinion and became quite aggressive about it. I'm sure most of you have experienced some passionate updates in the past week, either for or against Maggie's death ('Ding Dong the witch is dead' springs to mind). I was seeing mainly pro-death ones; outbursts of joy, celebration, revelling in the death of an old woman who has been off the radar for 20 years. I didn't see even half as many raging statuses about Mick Phillpot, who recently got life for murdering six of his children. I was shocked to say the least, reading angry and hateful posts mainly from people who were...

Four days ago, YouTube saw the release of PSY's new single, 'Gentlemen'.  Much like 'Gangnam Style', it has a simple beat, a simple computerised tune, and lyrics that no one understands. I watched this for the first time and wasn't very impressed, yet found myself clicking the replay..?! What do you think? You kind of want to listen to it again right? It's like you have been hypnotised by the repetitive electronic beat. Like you want to mumble more of the verse just to get to the four words of chorus you actually know. Like you wanna swing your ponytail and casually thrust your hips to the beat like a gentleman. 'Gangnam Style' was the first video on YouTube to reach a billion views and, with 'Gentlemen' reaching 122,175,143 views after a mere four days, I have no doubt that it is well on it's way to beating that record. But why? Why is it that the songwriters who sit for days, weeks, years, creating harmonies and melodies ...

Whenever I see a good or bad ad, I immediately put it into my iPhone notes so I remember to write a blog post about it. Unfortuntely there are times I forget and the moment passes - doesn't make me look very ad savvy writing about something that was aired 6 months ago! However, an ad that I loved and forgot to write about was last month's Oxo's Magic Cube. Well, better late than never! Oxo stock cube ads are something I think of as being really British. The cubes themself have been around since the mid 19th Century, and the ads have always stuck in my head. I'm sure you all recognise this one: Maybe it's the family banter around the table, maybe it's the nostalgia of being a kid, or maybe it's the  memory of the smell of mum's roast filling the house - whatever it is, Oxo ads will stay with  me  forever. But as you can see, I speak about Oxo being a part of my past, not the present, and I'd guess I'm not the only person who sees the Oxo...

Thanks to my dad and sister being hardcore Chelsea fans, I was introduced to a football advert which I doubt I would have come across on my own. (As you read on, please excuse my ignorance about football!) Each year the Premiership teams have their kit redesigned and these new kits are advertised to the public at the end of each season (May). However, the ads for the new kits are always a mysterious and blurry teaser; a partial revealing that gets footie fans already reaching for their wallets. I'm going to talk about Chelsea's in particular, not just because I have to support them (or I will be disowned), but also because it's actually a great ad! The Adidas ad shows Juan Mata, David Luiz, Gary Cahill and club captain John Terry all being drenched in thick blue paint that is seeping from lockers, creeping across the floor, and exploding in their faces. The whole process is beautiful to watch, as the paint movement in slow motion looks brilliant. The play...

A couple of weeks ago I entered a competition for free participation into The Climb . The Climb is a competition in itself, with the task being to solve a creative brief with your team whilst racing to the top of Mt. Snowdon, then pitching your idea when you get to the top. The competition I entered, for free participation and a bottle of Jaeger and Patron, was to come up with a quick ad for The Climb. This was my entry: Pretty simple and basic, but hey I won. I'm not sure if there were many entries at all.. but who cares. I won. So The Climb takes place on Saturday 20th April and I hope I can go (money/fellow team members/travel permitting), because I think it would be a great experience. If anyone is interested in joining my team of... me.... then give me a shout at lcrippscreative@gmail.com or @lauracripps on Twitter, and I'll try and get a good team together before I commit to anything.  NB: The Climb has now been moved to June 1st. So if a...