Emma Brooks | Digital Media Enthusiast

The holidays can be a very stressful time – especially if you’re traveling. So that’s why I love what the Toronto Pearson Airport is doing right now.

For any traveler traveling domestically from Dec 15-24, you can either request a holiday song from their cheerful carolers or get them to greet your special person arriving at the baggage claims. All you need to do is tweet to @TorontoPearson with their name, flight and date and they’ll do their best to catch them and offer up a little jingle.

I first saw the carolers as they went past me on the moving sidewalk and tweeted out how great that was, tagging @TorontoPearson. Within minutes they had reached out and asked if I wanted one. Before I knew it, three carolers showed up and sang me a fantastic version of “Jingle Bells” with a personalized sign and all!

Thanks so much, Toronto Pearson Airport. You really brightened up my day! (So much so I’m writing this from the plane before take-off!)

Happy holidays everyone!

Just in time for the 12 days of Christmas, Tribal DDB Toronto launched their latest campaign for Canadian Tire, bringing the Christmas Spirit to life thanks to power of online. (Ahhh, the internets. Is there anything it can’t do?)

The Christmas Spirit Tree, which will be on display from now until 26, 2011 at Toronto’s Union Station, is bright and merry, absolutely. Its 3,000 LED lights are powered by messages of positive Christmas spirit on social channels, such as Facebook, Twitter and to the Christmas Spirit Tree website, ChristmasSpiritTree.ca.

The website itself is really nicely done: simple and cheery. And I admit, I like watching the tree light up as people send out happy messages. It’s nice to physically see positivity in this world these days. There should be more of that, ok? Ok.

I will say though, I do find it interesting that in this day and age of PC-ness where everyone tip-toes around the question of what to call the “holiday season”, that Canadian Tire decided to align itself so tightly with Christmas.

But either way, it’s a nice, feel-good campaign. Well done to the teams at Canadian Tire and Tribal DDB. Thank you for sharing joy with this world.

Lately, in my humble lady opinion, tampon makers have been stepping it up a notch.

First, UbyKotex (worst name to remember ever) comes up with their Social Experiment videos which – to me – raised some really valid points:

Why are we so uncomfortable buying tampons?

Why are tampon products so darn confusing?

And now, O.B. comes up to the plate and hits one out of the ballpark with their O.B. Triple Sorry campaign. On the site, http://www.obtampons.ca/apology users are asked to plug in their first name and are then presented with a personalized apology video, sung by a (really very) cute guy. The video incorporates my name surprisingly well (curious as to what was the process for being able to sing my name?) and then caps it off with a free coupon. Sweet. (Both sweet in the sense of, “Aww, what a sweet guy” and “Sweet! Hello, free product!”)

I took some screenshots if you are like a few of my friends who don’t have audio on their work computers (*cough*Maggie*cough):

Here’s the thing: Myself and two other women I chatted with had no idea what O.B. was apologizing for. A quick Google search “Why is OB tampons sorry?” led me to this Consumerist story, which tells me that apparently O.B. hasn’t been on shelves in months here in Canada. Hunh. I hadn’t even noticed – and I buy O.B. (Whoa, TMI. But also relevant so… Oh well.)

This is a great campaign, but also a campaign that highlights a negative component of a brand’s history that my social circle had no idea about. And now we do… because we got the apology letter. Thanks O.B.! (Also – curious as to the % of market that was aware of this issue. Anyone?)

Oh and one last, final thought: Why are men still in tampon commercials? Remember those awful Stayfree ads? Yeah. Can men just get out of those tampon ads? Love and thanks, all the women of the world.