Thank you to all our readers, subscribers and advertisers for your support in 2015.

We'll be closing up shop for the next few days but rest assured, we'll be back up and running fully on January 4th to bring you bigger and better examples of media innovation in 2016.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 

For once, this is not a joke or pipedream. We have three ‘home’  nations competing in the UEFA European Championship Finals for the first time heightening rivalry and making the tournament potentially even more valuable for brands. But are the official channels the best route to take or are there more cost effective, creative and engaging alternatives? Sporting Mouth’s John Owrid investigates…

The draw for any major tournament is always hotly anticipated by football fans, and none more so than that for the 2016 UEFA European Championship Finals with more nations than ever taking part this year. It has ignited the imagination of British football fans in particular, with three home nations having qualified – England, Wales and Northern Ireland – for the first time, plus near neighbour Ireland also taking part.

France 2016 will take British home nation rivalry to a new level, particularly in light of the draw pitching England and Wales in the same group. More nations and heightened competition within the UK creates arguably the biggest opportunity for brands ever at the Euros. The problem is that the official UEFA sponsorship opportunities are limited and fought over rabidly, with the winners charged huge amounts to take up a slot.

So if you’ve missed out, either through being beaten to it by other brands or because you’ve been priced out of the market, does that mean your Euro 2016 is over even before a ball has been kicked? As far as official sponsorship goes, yes. But is that such a bad thing?

There are so many brands competing for the attention of fans through official channels that your campaign needs to be very special to stand out and many tend to blur into one. Also, official opportunities don’t tend to offer anything particularly creative, and are quite traditional, using TV and pitch-side advertising that fans have become highly adept at tuning out of whether they’re at the match or watching from their sofa. This suggests, therefore, that brands currently aren’t getting the best value for money through the massive spend they are placing via official channels.

A fragmented, multi-channel media world means that briefing creative agencies requires a radical rethink, says Alex Smith, planning director at real-world marketing agency Sense.

There is no one thing more material to the success of a marketing or advertising campaign than the client brief. No matter how well planned and executed a campaign is, if the brief is wide of the mark, it’s unlikely to work effectively. Current briefs tend to start out with a target media in mind around which the creative is tailored – or media first, idea second.

This has worked well for many years, resulting in entire marketing departments effectively being designed around it. However, the increasingly fragmented nature of media today is rendering this approach increasingly ineffective. No longer should media lead the idea; the idea should lead the media – idea first, media second.

When you formulate an idea in the absence of media, it’s very easy and natural to build a media plan around it, custom-built for the concept. Imagine, say, Pampers wanted to run a campaign that involved getting mums together with each other to share advice. You can see this working on Facebook, because it’s a community-building platform. YouTube, however? The relevance may still be there, but it’s much more hazy. Instagram?  Probably not at all.

As well as Facebook being a natural fit, you can see how it would make sense to actually get mums together in person, so experiential then comes into play. Naturally, if you have these meetups, you don’t want them to fall flat, so why not promote them with a bit of print advertising and some listings partnerships? Keep burrowing in this direction and before you know it you have a rich, fully fleshed out media plan, which has been custom-built to the idea at hand, with every element working in true harmony and true integration.

The way we watch TV is undoubtedly vastly different than it was five years ago. You only need to take a look at the programme for this year’s Guardian Edinburgh International TV Festival to see how things have changed. This year’s lineup included sessions from "Should my show have an App?" to "What do your audience really think?", highlighting an increasing focus on the importance of audience engagement and digital platforms. The usual dominance of channel controller sessions was still there but there was noticeably an equal focus placed on the environments surrounding the programmes, as there was on the shows themselves.

Social media is perhaps the most obvious way broadcasters and show producers can muster online engagement with their shows and capitalise on the 87% of consumers (Source: Accenture) who use a second screen whilst watching TV. Not only is it instant, it can amplify quickly and drive awareness of specific shows across a variety of channels.

According to The Guardian the ‘Elite’ top 30 shows, which include behemoth hits such as Britain’s Got Talent, The X Factor, Sherlock and Doctor Who, accounted for 50% of all TV related content posted on Twitter between May 2013 and May 2014. In fact, the impact of social goes further than that. The growing quest to create the modern equivalent of "watercooler TV", meant that 11% of shows, which actively encouraged social media participation, saw their ratings spike during the same period. For commercial channels like ITV and Channel 4 this is obviously an attractive prospect, which can help drive higher advertising revenues. So for broadcasters finding shows with a high social index is understandably a priority.

It’s always going to be a risky move in ad land when it comes to using ‘bad’ words, but hats off to Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam for taking the brave step and transforming the four-letter ‘F’ word into a force for good this festive season.

By harnessing the power that a single four-letter word has to offend, excite and provoke, the agency is putting the word at the heart of its efforts to encourage the global public to actually ‘Give a F**k’ and purchase limited-edition artworks to raise money for the refugee crisis.

‘Give a F**k’ is a charitable platform that aims to encourage people to take action and connect the creative community with social causes. The initiative has been launched by W+K Amsterdam in partnership with more than 60 talented artists from across the globe, asking each to create and donate artwork that represents or features ‘a f**k’. The result is more than 100 limited edition artworks from varying mediums, which are being sold in aid of Proactiva Open Arms – the lifeguards at the frontline of the refugee crisis.

Viral has become a key measure of online video success for advertisers the world over and thanks to the folks at Unruly, now we can see which brands are doing it best. From furry friends to personal interactions, the feel good factor to tear-jerkers, the top 10 shared ads of 2015 globally served up a range of viral gold content from Android, Budweiser, Disney, Purina and more…

Check out the top 10 below:

1. Android ‘Friends Furever’
No. of shares: 6.4 million+

2. Disney ‘Disney Characters Surprise Shoppers’
No. of shares: 3.9 million+

Ok, so we know that Paddy Power is a brand known for its cheeky and somewhat mischievous advertising but the latest ad to promote its new smartphone app is on a whole other level!

Deemed “too fruity” for TV, the 30” online ad, created by Lucky Generals, features men and women rummaging around in their pockets in public, giving the impression that they are pleasuring themselves. Of course, that’s not quite what’s happening – they are in fact using their phone in their pocket to place bets through the new app, portraying how easy it is to use.