Vinyl records have drifted in and out of popularity over the past ten years, with their chic image being much more appealing than CDs and tape cassettes. Budweiser and former Black Eye Peas frontman, Will.I.Am, recently came together in a first for marketing; a vinyl magazine ad. The ad contains Will.I.Am’s new single, “Great Times”, and comes in the form of a music magazine pull-out. Coming up to the party season of summer, this could inspire similar campaigns later this year.

The National Centre for Domestic Violence in the United Kingdom have come up with an innovative way of raising awareness of domestic abuse and how victims can be helped. At an underground train station, a series of large monitors are used as focal points where a waiting patron can virtually drag an abuser from their victim through using their smartphone. This is a very clever way of occupying people’s time with an important message as they wait for their stop.

Many successful marketing campaigns are based on a simple idea or premise, and makes one wonder how they did not think of it before. Sprite have come up with such an idea, where they have expressed their main selling point of refreshment into a visually impressive marketing stunt, that gets their message across loud and clear. On a sweltering beach in Brazil, Sprite built a larger-than-life model of one of their drinks dispensers, regularly seen in all fast food restaurants or cafes around the world. However, instead of Sprite, it was water that was dispensed for patrons wanting to shower after the beach. This stunt attracted many at the beach itself but more importantly online, as the video rapidly grows in views.

An abandoned house causing a stir is the centre of Lynx’s new campaign for their new range body sprays aimed at both men and women. To the untrained eye the house, located in Sydney, has whitened boards for windows, and not much seems amiss. However, when viewing through special sunglasses, it can be seen that the house is actually a beehive of activity, with virtual couples becoming acquainted with one another. The whole purpose of this publicity stunt is undoubtedly to create a viral video, which is on course as the video surpassed 60,000 views in less than a week.

On 10 December 2011, comedian Louis CK released a film of his stand-up routine, Live at the Beacon Theater. Instead of selling the rights to the gig to a big-time TV company, he decided to cut out the middle-man, and release it straight to the public for download through his website, for the modestly-priced sum of $5. The result was outstanding; little over a week later, CK had manage to sell over $1,000,000 worth of downloads. This has inspired other comedians such as Aziz Ansari to follow suit, in a system that reinforces the connection between artist and fan, limits piracy and keeps the price low yet profitable. In promoting the show CK simply used his Twitter account, reaching out to the 1 million+ followers he has.

Many car commercials use humour to get across a point about a feature or several features about their product. In recent times, Volkswagen have been a company that has relied on this form of storytelling, such as The Force commercial that was released at the start of 2011. However, in a new commercial for the 2012 Passat, the subject of safety prevails, and is done so in a way that hits home hard with the viewer. The first 15 seconds of the ad looks like a set up for a humourous one-liner or situation, and seems to have comedic atmosphere up until this point. However, the punchline of the text instantly changes the  momentum of the commercial, which the relaxed viewer will find memorable.

Danish classical music radio station, Radio Klassik, recently advertised themselves through a flash mob-style video, that hit home their goal of bringing soothing and beautiful music to the masses. On a Copenhagen Metro line, unsuspecting passengers were treated to a rendition of Peer Gynt by a group of violinists, flutists and other players. The emotion evoked in the passengers is captured, and their reaction is as good as a testimonial can be to listen to what the station offers.The video has already become a YouTube hit, with almost 1 million views in just a week.

A new social media campaign is challenging people to live on $1.50 worth of food a day, in an attempt to recreate this budgetary situation that 1.4 billion people on earth must live through, and ultimately raise awareness about such poverty. The campaign is named Live Below the Line and is supported by Australian actor Hugh Jackman. Where social media comes into play in this campaign is through Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. People are encouraged to help the campaign by undertaking the $1.50 challenge and post their experiences online. The campaign is being run in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Yesterday Jennifer Lopez unveiled the video to her new song, Follow The Leader, on Twitter after a week of anticipation and promotion. As expected, the video racked up thousands of views within seconds, and really demonstrated the direct connection that artists and celebrities have with their fans in the modern age via social media. If this video was to be released on TV or just uploaded on YouTube with little promotion, than it would not have created the media furore that it generated through Twitter. On Lopez’s Twitter page is more promotion, including dates for TV appearances discussing the behind-the-scenes of the video.

The Facebook Timeline structure, which has been in place for several months now, has given people the chance to create a record of every occasion in their lives, from birth to marriage, from holidays to welcoming new pets. Now Facebook has added the option of declaring the date that you became an organ donor, in order to highlight organ donation. This option has only been made available in some countries, but nonetheless looks to be an extremely effective way of promoting this cause.