The 10 Best Marketing GIFs of 2012

As the year draws to a close, the time has come to celebrate the 10 Best Marketing GIFs of 2012!  So grab a cup of eggnog, sit back, and enjoy the animated GIFs that caught our attention this year.

#10  lovestru.ck

Dessert never looked or moved so good before we saw this innovative GIF.  It’s clean, crisp, and tells a story simply and to the point.  This GIF shows us why the multi-faceted medium is here to stay and why it has become a major player in digital marketing and advertising.

#9  Google+

We found this one while looking on Google+.  Its slight movement in just the right spots makes your mouth water and is a great demonstration of how slight movement elicits and expands emotion… and your taste buds.

#8  Craig Staggs

Artist and videographer Craig Staggs used a bar in Austin, TX as the backdrop for this colorful GIF.  It shows absinthe dripping ever so slowly into a glass.  This GIF was used in a variety of digital marketing including email campaigns and website design.

#7  Diesel

Diesel’s Autumn/Winter 2012 ad campaign will make you do a double take.  At first glance, the ads shot by famed fashion photographer Steve Meisel look like traditional, static outdoor ads.  But when you take a second look, you’ll notice they’re actually subtly moving.

#6  Burberry

Burberry’s “Thanks A Million” campaign tweeted out this personalized GIF to its Twitter followers after successfully reaching the one million mark on the popular social media site.

#5  Looper

The major motion picture Looper introduced us to the world’s first “official” GIF movie poster in October when the film premiered.

#4  Reed + Rader

Created for NYC fashion line Verrier, this delicate but powerful GIF was included as part of a series of “lookbook” animations that appeared on their website.

#3  Jack Spade

This GIF was included in an email sent out as part of their Fall Campaign.  One blogger commented, “When I saw Jack Spade’s email I was majorly impressed — it had one of the biggest animated GIFs in an email that I’ve ever seen! It immediately caught my attention and I watched the entire GIF play through, over and over again.”

#2  Amazon

This GIF was included as part of Amazon’s Black Friday email campaign used to kick off their ‘Deals of the Week’.

#1  Jamie Beck & Kevin Burg

True pioneers of the medium, Beck & Burg make every GIF shine with their masterful use of style and artistry.  This GIF was created for Lincoln Motor Company to celebrate the memory of romance alongside their timeless classic cars.

These GIFs are all great examples of the visual power of the medium and it’s just the beginning.  In 2012, not only did the GIF celebrate its 25th Birthday,  it was even honored as the Word of Year by Oxford Dictionary.  Yes, it’s been quite the year for the ‘new’ animated GIF and we’re looking forward to an even better 2013!  Happy New Year!

Can Your Ecommerce Do This?

Take a look at these animated GIFs being used at ThinkGeek’s ecommerce website.  They’re a great example of how high quality animated GIFs can be used to help sell products.  ThinkGeek quickly demonstrates the value and features of these particular products by showing them in use.  Instead of a boring still image, they opted to show motion and draw attention to what makes the product unique.  They simply sprinkle them in their online catalog to capture consumers’ attention and sell more items.  You can see their website in action by clicking the logo below.

Other websites are beginning to use animated GIFs to sell clothing and other fashion merchandise.  What use to take multiple clicks and various stale images now happens automatically.  Animated GIFs quickly demonstrate an item and show its different options and features.  Here are a few more examples from the web:

Land’s End

Bed Bath & Beyond / Sherwin Williams

One of the best GIF friendly DIY ecommerce sites is Shopify.com.  They handle GIFs with ease and you can easily set-up your product displays to animate at any viewing size.  We recommend that if you thinking about creating your own ecommerce site, look into using Shopify.  And of course use Cinegif to make all of your professional, high-quality animated GIFs.