Jack Daniel’s celebrates Independence Day in the USA with a true representation of what craft really is. The whisky brand’s annual tradition is to collaborate with independent artists to create a series of man-crafted posters ahead of July 4—in 2011, Jack Daniel’s unveiled letterpress prints, and now it is taking the idea further and presents a bunch of hand-made posters to mark the occasion. To add the atmosphere of authenticity, the three artists, who partnered with the brand this year, created five unique posters with their own hands using traditional techniques, including embroidery, fred cutting, painting and more.

Procter&Gamble, which is the global Olympics sponsor, is launching a new digital campaign dubbed 1 Thank You = 1 Chance to Win as extension on its ‘Thank You Mum’ activity dedicated to support Olympic athletes (the ‘P&G Thanks, Mom’ was launched back in 2010). The effort was kicked off yesterday, March 5, in the UK ahead of Mothers’ Day celebrated on March 18—it is expected to roll across other markets on respective national days.

The Guinness beer brand is encouraging public around the globe to show their love of the Ireland’s national holiday St. Patrick’s Day (which is known and celebrated outside the country as well) and help the brand to set a new Guinness World Record on March 17. It’s not the first time when brands are calling their fans to help them achieve big goals—last year, Oreo gathered most Facebook likes for one post in 24 hours and Lynx ‘hosted’ the most massive simultaneous shower-taking event. Just like the cookies brand, Guinness is also using its digital hubs, the brand’s Facebook page and www.Guinness.com, to gather the most people possible for ‘The Largest St. Patrick’s Day Celebration.’

The dose of love the brands shared with the world on Valentine’s Day was so big that we still feel it. For the lasting effect of the holiday, Moët & Chandon has teamed up with renowned graffiti artist André, to create a new limited-edition lovely packaging for its Rose Imperial champagne that allows to personalize the bottle and launched the ‘Tag Your Love’ campaign featuring the highly recognizable smiling Mr. A character ahead of V-Day.      

Now that spring is to arrive in two weeks, all the 2012 New Year celebrations and news about them are left behind, but there’s another New Year marketing project, which is worth mentioning. China celebrated Spring Festival, its national New Year on January 23, and to mark the occasion, PepsiCo launched a lovely campaign dubbed ‘Bring Happiness Home,’ encouraging its consumers and fellow colleagues to go and celebrate the holiday with their family and special ones.

In February, as the world celebrates Valentine’s Day, love is the major theme of promotions and advertising efforts. Brands offer their own unique or predictable ways to share love with their special ones and with the world as well by purchasing the new themed merchandise or writing messages of love. Recently, Heineken and Starbucks to name but a few offered their hilarious solutions for spreading the romantic spirit with people they love and know, but KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese is taking love sharing to the next level by offering to send positive emotion to those, whom they probably haven’t met in their life, as part of the charitable ‘Golden Voice of Love’ effort.

Remember the hilarious Starbucks Cup Magic app, released by the coffee giant before Christmas? Ahead of Valentine’s Day, Starbucks is launching a new version of the app in the US to help spread love across the nation and ‘Celebrate everylove.’ Just like the X-mas version, it brings to life the limited edition cups with holiday symbols (now they are hearts) and special targets with an augmented reality twist. The new Valentine’s Day application, which allows to create and send a personalized animated valentine or a festive Starbucks Card eGift, will be available to download from here for eleven days, February 6-16.