Chestnuts roasting on an open fire: check.
Eggnog: check.
Repeated viewings of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation: check.
Ugly sweaters: Check, check, check and check.

The ugly sweater phenomenon has quickly become a holiday tradition rearing its (obviously ugly) head at parties – and now branded content. Here’s a look at four ways brands and the City of Portland have used ugly sweaters to their advantage this season.

Snickers goes social

Snickers is capitalizing on the ugly sweater trend predominantly through Facebook and Twitter, posting a Snickers bar sweater template earlier this month, and continuing by adding photos of festively-clad confectionary treats. This approach is a little hands-off, but who said ugly sweaters needed to be a defining piece of a brand’s marketing strategy?

Coke Zero capitalizes on the ugly

In late November, Coke Zero developed and promoted a “Sweater Generator,” encouraging fans to create the tackiest of sweaters online. By signing in to the website with Facebook or Twitter, users could solicit votes for their generated sweater design. Coke Zero then made the top 100 sweaters and shipped them to their respective creators, using “the power of a thousand grandmothers in the palm of your internet.”

Too bad we found out about this one after the December 1 deadline. At least one of us would have loved a custom-made, saxophone-emblazoned sweater. The Sweater Generator is still usable. Here’s what we came up with:

Budweiser’s tweet-powered sweater

Budweiser U.K. wins the Do-Gooder via Ugly Sweater Award this year for its tweet-powered sweater knit machine – the Knitbot.

Bud is bringing awareness to the season’s designated drivers by encouraging the Twittersphere to use the hashtag #jumpersfordes. Each tagged tweet causes Knitbot to knit more jumpers (U.S. translation: sweaters) to be packaged up and shipped to promote the caretakers of those of us who have had one too many Budweisers…or Irish coffees.

Great campaign and great message, however, Twitter engagement has been lackluster at best, and AdWeek has deemed these sweaters not quite ugly enough.

Downtown Portland takes on ugly sweaters

The beavers and seals in the fountains by Pioneer Courthouse Square have been looking awfully festive this year, thanks to Downtown Portland’s #uglysweaterpdx campaign. No statue in the area has been left out, each donning various hand-knitted pieces by local crafters. Unfortunately, however, many of the knitted pieces have been stolen.

More than just dressing up the local bronze wildlife, nude woman and guy with the umbrella, Downtown Portland is running an ugly sweater contest via social media until December 20 with prizes to various downtown eateries and retailers. Other businesses have partnered with this campaign, offering discounts to customers who come in wearing ugly sweaters or holding sweater-themed events to promote tourism downtown.

The sweater trend, unraveled

Just as there is more than one way to skin a cat, there is more than one way to knit a sweater. Snickers, Coke Zero, Budweiser U.K. and Downtown Portland have all jumped on the ugly sweater trend, but all in different ways.

Magneto can’t declare an ugly sweater champion of the four presented here. Each of these campaigns has strengths and weaknesses, and serves different purposes and audiences, all while being fun, light-hearted and capturing the holiday spirit.

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