Ahead of the annual Holi Festival in India, Reliance General Insurance rolled out a campaign that hopes to raise awareness of a stark truth, in an effort to create a safer festival for women.

Created by Ogilvy & Mather, the ‘#HoliNotHooliganism’ campaign puts the spotlight on an often ignored reality that men take the opportunity to harass, grope and molest women under the guise of colour.

The campaign centres around three print ads that show two images side by side – the first a colourful image of Holi alongside another highlighting the reality which often hides beneath the colour once stripped away.

Social media is an ever evolving and surprising industry, with changing consumer preferences, new features being introduced and brand opportunities being presented.

In such a fast-paced landscape, it's often tricky to predict what the year ahead will bring in terms of social media marketing, but there are a few things that, according to the folks at Sprout Social, marketers should keep an eye on.

Check out the six social media trends for 2018 infographic below:

Geico is taking online attention grabbing to a whole new level with its latest ‘Interrupt-a-palooza’ campaign in which it is, once again, attempting to reinvent the pre-roll ad with a series of ads that interrupt again and again…

If there was an award for cramming as much action and branding into 15 seconds, Geico and The Martin Agency would certainly take the crown; the series of ads begin with the company admitting upfront that this ad is interrupting the viewer, before the ad itself is interrupted by some more action, ending with another interruption in the shape of the Geico logo.

If you have 45 seconds to spare, check out the pre-roll spots below:

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With Christmas now less than a week away, we take a look at the top 10 Christmas ads in the UK, according to YouTube*. Not surprisingly, it is the retailers who dominate the majority of the list with tech giant Apple making an appearance in the number 10 spot. 

So without further ado, the festive ad winners of 2017 are…

1. #MozTheMonster
Advertiser: John Lewis
Creative agency: adam&eveDDB
Media agency: Manning Gottlieb OMD
No. of video views**: 9,329,476

2. Paddington & The Christmas Visitor #LoveTheBear
Advertiser: M&S
Creative agency: Grey London
Media agency: Mindshare
No. of video views**: 6,631,768

Following the news of Harvey Weinstein and the subsequent #MeToo hashtag sweeping the globe, Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) is high on everyone’s agenda. With one in four women in the UK still being affected and up to 70% in some parts of the world, agency JWT created a social campaign for UN Women UK to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

#drawaline brought together a host of famous faces including Benedict Cumberbatch, Deliciously Ella and Gemma Styles, among others, asking the public to help end the silence and bring about change by physically drawing an orange line – after all, violence is a line that should never be crossed.

Digital marketers have seen many innovations and even the involvement of politics in social media in 2017, as the channel continues to evolve at lightning speed. These developments have shaped how we use social media, both as consumers and advertisers. So what does 2018 have in store?

1. Video will play a bigger role in the consumer journey

This year has seen the rise of video content. Particularly with its importance in social algorithms, this format is especially valuable to brands in terms of achieving higher reach and engagement, including retweets, likes, comments and shares. In 2017, 90% of all shared social media content has been video!

In 2018, the popularity of video content is expected to grow, and advertisers are likely to follow this trend. Video is the fastest growing format in the world and has been doubling year on year. It is predicted that by 2020, it will contribute to 80% of all online consumer internet traffic. At Social Media Week London 2017, Facebook’s Creative Strategist, Kat Hahn warned: “Not doing short video is not an option.”

Indeed, with the cramped market and every advertiser struggling to capture their audience’s attention, the first three seconds of a video are the most crucial. In 2018, brands will strive to create engaging and fast-paced video content their target markets, and it is likely that the quality will improve at a rate greater than other forms of social media.

According to the World Health Organisation, Lima is the second most polluted city in Latin America. To promote the benefits of natural gas to mitigate this situation, McCann Lima has created an innovative OOH campaign for Peruvian gas company CALIDDA that gives a voice to the country’s capital, so that the city could “express” how difficult it has become for it to breathe.

The project collected actual air pollution to communicate the hazards of car pollution and the benefits of natural gas. By attaching a device to a prominent outdoor ad location in one of Lima’s busiest traffic locations, CO2 pollution was collected by the unit from the atmosphere. The unit stored the gas and then processed it into a powder which acted as an ink and was manipulated to slowly write a message on the billboard.