It’s that time of year again. 

Everyone is creating their Top Ten list and it is likely they will have the same viral videos or digital marketing campaigns, e.g., Darth Vader Volkswagen ad, on them.  However, I have assembled a different list, one that is not based on number of views or shares. This is a highly personal list, but very strictly curated.

 The three criteria every campaign had to meet were:

1. Unique - the message was conveyed in a fresh, and unconventional manner..not a rehash of an older campaign
2. Compelling - brands are becoming content creators, so the execution had to be engaging, either in a fun and amusing way, or a serious, but not depressing, fashion
3. Effective -  the message had to be on brand and successful in reaching the intended audience.

While I assembled the list, three key themes emerged from the winners: Personalization (PER), Real World Activation or Trans Media (RWA) and Localization integration (LBS). And as you'll see below, I've indicated how the winning campaigns integrated those themes into their execution. 

I'll be posting two campaigns a day from the list for the next five days. So here we go in descending order. Hopefully you'll find some unexpected gems here.

 Number 10

Moby’s Album Launch for Destroyed (PER RWP LBS) 

These days just launching an album and hoping it will sell is a long gone assumption. Streaming it for free and hoping some folks will pay for it has been around since Radiohead released In Rainbows.  So when Moby launched Destroyed in May, he chose to use the newest and coolest technologies to reach his fans.  By leveraging the streaming functionality through SoundCloud to let fans hear the music, and the sharing functionality of the hugely popular iPhone app, Instagram, the launch became a real time interactive immersive experience. The website provides the RWA and LBS factors through a world map dotted with the photographs taken by Moby that inspired the songs while on tour.  Then adding in the PER, he asked fans to contribute their own Instagram photos to the site, allowing a more personal connection with Moby and his process.  The site has 18K Likes and 3500 tweets, not bad!

 Number 9

Granata Pet Snack Check (RWA, LBS)   

Interactive billboards are not new but using them as Granata has done is brilliant. The objective was to make dog owners aware of their new healthy of dog food.  But their unique strategy was not to target the owners, but rather the dogs. Knowing dogs need to be walked daily, they put up a series of billboards that incented owners to check into them on Foursquare (LBS) as they were walking past with their dogs, which immediately dispensed free dog food (RWA). What dog doesn’t want food? What owner wouldn’t mind free food? Best of all, Granata gets dogs to taste their food without doing the hard sell. Everybody wins.

The MAK Center is sponsoring a project called "How Many Billboards?" and has commissioned 21 artists including Kenneth Anger, Kira Lynn Harris,John Knight, Susan Silton to create large images that will be scattered across the landscape of LA. Here's a quote from their website:

The philosophical proposition of the exhibition is simple: art should occupy a visible position in the cacophony of mediated images in the city, and it should do so without merely adding to the visual noise. How Many Billboards? Art In Stead proposes that art periodically displace advertisement in the urban environment. There's an artists' reception on Feb. 27 at the Schindler House from 1-6. Should be fun. Finally, billboards will be good for something.