We hope you all had a lovely Easter break! The Practice team certainly enjoyed our Spring holiday and we’ve loved seeing how our favorite brands marked the occasion too. So from online to video, which companies egg-celled (sorry!) themselves in their Easter campaigns?

As usual, our institutional brands created some stellar ad campaigns. We were particularly impressed by M&S’s video adverts, most likely due to the mouthwatering display of food! In conjunction with Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R, the supermarket chain created three adverts to celebrate the event- “Adventures in Chocolate”, “Adventures in Berries”, and “Marks and Spencer Easter.” In typical M&S style, the latter two showcased the perfect ingredients for a delicious Easter lunch, while the former showed its seasonal chocolate egg range, complete with melting chocolate, fruit, nuts, and hand finished decorations liberally splattered throughout the video. The delicious-looking campaign launched on TV, online, print and social media last Thursday, and clearly fulfilled it aim- we were enticed to buy pretty much everything shown!

The most interactive campaigns saw brands take to social media to create buzz around Easter and their products. Thorntons for example, shone this year with a national Easter egg hunt. The competition involved the chain releasing an interactive map of over 50 eggs that it had hidden around the UK. Clues were posted to Facebook and Twitter, while participants were encouraged to share updates with the hash tag #HarryHopalotsEggHunt, chosen after the name of the brand’s Easter mascot, Harry Hopalot. While sticking strictly to the online space, yet still proving effective, was The Co-operative’s Easter egg hunt. The brand hid a variety of eggs on its special Easter site, “Easterlovedbyus.com”, and took to social media to ask viewers to count the number of eggs they could find. Participants could then post their answers to Facebook and Twitter with the hash tag #coopeasterhunt.

But in the run up to Easter, our favourite campaign had to be from Waitrose, who showed off their creative side with a great series of Vines. The supermarket chain created six video loops around the holiday, as well as some to support Great Ormond St Hospital Childrens’ Charity. For this campaign, Waitrose encouraged viewers to share their own Easter Vines with the hash tag #GoodEgg for the chance to win prizes. In addition, the supermarket made donations throughout the period to Great Ormond St Hospital, and sent Easter eggs to the children there. Each Vine was well executed, showcasing Waitrose’s array of chocolate eggs in movement, and also featured moving gift tags inscribed with the competition details. Aside from this campaign, the company created other Vines to mark the holiday, including an advert for Heston Blumenthal’s Golden Egg. This showed the egg being cracked open, revealing mini chocolate eggs and an edible vanilla-flavoured nest inside. A series of recipes were also advertised, including one for Blueberry bunny scones, and how to turn an empty eggshell into a dipping cup. It’s clear that by combining charity, product advertisements and innovative ideas and recipes in an imaginative manner, Waitrose certainly outdid themselves this holiday period.

What do you think of the Easter campaigns we’ve chosen? And did you have any favourites this year? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and share your comments on our Facebook page.