Everyone here at Cybercom would like to to wish all of our clients, suppliers and friends the very best of Christmas wishes and success in the New Year.

Have a great holiday and see you in January!

For most people, Christmas Day is all about the big feed and the movies on TV. Every now and agian, during those little gaps in movie madness, we’re shown a  kaleidoscope of products, services and seasons greeting. So we ask, what are the best Christmas TV Ads ever?

Here’s our choices (in no particular order), but perhaps you can think of something we’ve missed – drop a comment and let us know.

1. The first ad on the list could only be one ad. Coca-Cola were the people who made Santa a fat man with a white beard and red suit, and now we all accept it. Possibly the best marketing ever? These are the two we like best - ad & ad
2. Of course it wouldn’t be Christmas without an ad for everyone’s favourite stout!
3. This John Lewis ad is brilliant – clever idea and a perfect execution.
4. There’s a good chance if you’re not Scottish you won’t like Iron Bru, but their ad is hilarious.
5. This isn’t just an ad, it’s an M&S Christmas ad. Recently reused, this is more of a technically brilliant ad.
6. This creative concept has possibly been dragged out too long, having said that, this ad definitely touches the right emotions of anyone who has family coming home for Christmas.
7. Ah but with your tv ad you are spoiling us. A nice Christmas ad from Ferrero Rocher seems to exist at Christmas.
8. We only remembered this BA ad when we saw it (probably not a good sign) but it’s worth remembering that there was a time when they had some of the largest budgets in the world.
9. There are some ads that you remember as if they’ve been around forever, and this ad is certainly one of them – great stuff from Budweiser.
10. Finally, when it comes to mushy feelings, this may be the best Christmas ad - Kellogs managed a cuteness factor of 120%

We previously reported that the US Army had raised concerns that there was potential for Terrorist use of Twitter. It now appears Facebook is being selected by Al-Qaeda for propaganda purposes. Details have been leaked onto Al-Fajola message board outlining the terrorist groups plans to use the Facebook community to spread propaganda, as well as step by step guides of how to make a suicide bomb.

Social networks are becoming increasingly attractive to both criminals and terrorists due to the large number of users and the vast quantity of information given out on them.

Lets just hope ‘People You May Know’ are not one of them!

It’s a tough job but someone has to do it, and after trawling through the vastness of YouTube, we are happy to confirm are Best Crimbo YouTube video as:

Or do you have a better one? If so comment, comment, comment.

Inside Facebook have published a report highlighting the social networks strong growth. According to them, Facebook is showing growth of over 500,000 members a day. They also highlight the recent acceleration that the network has seen over this quarter. This is particularly interesting if you can recall that 12 months ago all the talk was of a very slow year of growth side-by-side a raging debate as to whether the social networking bubble would burst. Of course, now it’s all about social media.

We think it’s safe to say that a major contributing factor has been Facebook’s open attempts (and successes) to constantly listen to it’s users and change the things that were turning people away from the site (most notably the alarmingly large amount of application spam).

According to Inside Facebook :

• At the beginning of the year Facebook had 130 million monthly active users. Today, that number is up to 140 million.
• While Facebook has been growing at around 300,000 to 400,000 active users per day for most of this quarter, its growth rate seems to have increased even further in recent weeks  up to 600,000 to 700,000 new users each day.
• If Facebook continues at this rate, it could add up to 20 million new users in December and reach 200 million active users by March.

So it looks thoroughly safe to say that 2009 will be the Social Media year.

The Cybercom Blog has gone from strength to strength in the last year. We now publish more posts, more regularly, and have introduced a number of themed weekly and fortnightly posts. One of these, the Friday’s Best of the Web, which we begun on May 30th, has proved to be extremely popular both inside the agency and to our many readers. To celebrate it’s success we have decided to do our final Friday’s Best of the Web as a round up of the years best websites, in our humble opinion.

So after tallying up all the votes, these are the top 5 websites of the year as voted by Cybercom:

1. Got Milk
http://www.gotmilk.com
This annual campaign for the Californian Milk Processor board was voted Cybercom’s most loved website for 2008. Fun, interactive and engaging – everything you want.

2. Hotel 626
http://hotel626.com
So frightening it only opens after 6pm! This is a website which captures and inspires the imagination – great, great work!

3. Make Me Super
http://www.makemesuper.com/index.html
A lot of fun was had in the office with this viral, give it a try if you haven’t yet.

4. My DJ Fantasy
http://www.mydjfantasy.com/us/djfantasy/index.html
To launch a new phone, Samsung created this uber personal experience. Become the star. Live the dream. Have ALL the fun!

5. Plus Belle Ma Maison
http://www.plus-belle-ma-maison.com
A technically superb site, which demonstrates excellent 3D animation and interaction. Explore it all – it’s well worth it.

A Campaign launched by the Parents of Iona Stratton, who fell ill with Leukemia when she was only 13 weeks old, launched a Facebook appeal in October this year to find a bone marrow donor for the 23 month old little girl. Since then thousands of people have joined groups urging them to become members of various tissue Transplant registers. With a global audience it is helping to widen the pool of Bone Marrow and Blood donors available and increases the chance of a match being made for patients worldwide.

The appeal attracted more than 7000 members in the first few weeks and they found a match in Australia within a short time.

Sadly Iona died earlier this month due to complications with her transplant but her case drew attention to the people reliant on Donors to give them a second chance.Finding donors was especially difficult for Iona because of her mixed Chinese and English heritage. There is a lack of People from ethnic minority backgrounds on registers worldwide, according to the Anthony Nola Trust Leukemia charity, (Sky new website).

Iona’s aunt Claire Stratton speaking On Sky News felt that Facebook had raised awareness, that individuals from mixed ethnic backgrounds don’t make up a huge number currently registered on donor registers and that Facebook has now encouraged people worldwide to join various registers.Facebook appeals are being launched to help other children currently seeking matches including 15 month old Bethany Dawson from the Uk who is awaiting a Liver and bowel transplant and with more than 155,000 people having joined her group lets hope a match is found as soon as possible.

The Third Annual Online Customer Engagement Survey, produced by E-consultancy and digital agency cScape, isn’t long on the shelves and we have given it a thorough review. The survey examines the likely impact of a worsening economic climate on customer behaviour and psychology.

In short, the survey concludes that businesses will invest more money and time in social media during the coming year, in an effort to boost customer engagement. The primary tolls are set to be blogging, community sites and user-generated content, according to research. The survey found that 51% companies say that the economic crisis has caused them to place greater focus on customer engagement. With this in mind they same group indicated that they would increase their utilisation of social media in line.

However, the research also indicated that 45% of companies already have a defined customer engagement strategy in place for 2009. Of these companies; 41% are looking to invest in areas associated with Web 2.0 and social media in an effort to accumulate user ratings and feedback, 37% will concentrate on user-generated content, and the remaining 36% will utilise blogging as a primary activity. Brand presence on social networks is also expected to attract significant sums of investment with 36% of firms prioritising this.

Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms will also enjoy a surge of business activity, with 7% of companies saying these tools have improved their customer engagement. There have been a number of high-profile examples of firms using Twitter to deal with customer enquiries, including 02 in the UK and Comcast in the US, and also the significant impact that Twitter has been seen to have on US TV marketing (esp. MadMen by AMC).

Linus Gregoriadis, head of research at E-consultancy, said: “More companies are viewing tactics such as blogging, user reviews and on-site video in the context of a broader customer engagement strategy and pulling only those levers which are most appropriate for their business model and customers.”

So it looks like the future will definitely be social.

Our YouTube pick of the week has to go to “Legoland’s Hardest Working Band”!

With great pride we would like to announce our brand spanking new membership of IAPI, the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland.

IAPI is the trade association and professional institute for Irish advertising agencies. Its primary role is to promote the highest professional and creative standards in the production of advertising, across all media.

We’re delighted to be have been accepted and our high standards recognised.