By Linda Bustos
Originating as inside-jokes in video games, TVs and movies, some digital marketers have also used Easter eggs to crack up customers.
For the last 2 years, we’ve run Easter features on Easter eggs in ecommerce marketing: How Easter Eggs Can Beef Up Your Marketing and Ecommerce Easter Eggs 2.0.
This year we break down 5 places you might hide an Easter egg in your ecommerce site or marketing. There’s only 2 rules – the eggs must be hidden, and should be surprising and delightful to find.
Home pages
Zappos
Who doesn’t love cats? Alright, there’s a strong contingent…but they are generally well received. At one point, Zappos surprised home page visitors with cats falling from the top of the screen.
NOTCOT
NotCouture hid a featured product and teased customers to find it to win prizes.
Product pages
Hema
Hema’s been running this gag for years. Check it out – it’s like nothing you’ve seen, I’m sure.
JCPenney
Intentional or not? You decide. This conservative woman’s shirt comes in “Chewbacca Pink.”
Search
Netflix
Last year, Netflix hid Easter eggs in search results in promotion of Arrested Development’s fourth season. Clicking the eggs lead to specific scene clips.
A search for “blue” brought up Tobias’ blue hand prints. A search for names of Bluth movies suggested “Families with Low Self Esteem,” “Boyfights” and “Caged Wisdom.”
Google’s hidden too many Easter eggs to count (or find), but Googling Festivus, anagram or askew are quite intriguing.
404 Pages
Hat tip to Smart Insights for this one, The Rolling Stones’ remind us we can’t always get what we want (and we walked right into that one).
Social
I’ve yet to find one in the wild, but I suggested in our post on Vine and Instagram video for ecommerce marketers, embedding an Easter egg in a Vine video, such as a coupon code or prize, rewards your most engaged social media followers.
