A pattern of design and execution that I believe drove all of the successes, whether large or small. The best campaigns all exhibited novel thinking in one or more of what I've concluded are the six categories, or Six C's of Success, which are: 

1. Channel. "New" shouldn't be a synonym for "digital" when it comes to media for reaching consumers. The truly inventive campaigns used new ways to communicate, like incorporating heaters in bus stops with ads, or newspapers that were written differently, not just reformatted to look like web pages. Every communications channel is "new" unless you choose to use it in old ways.
2. Creativity. I'm a sucker for a good fart joke just like the next guy, but the really creative content in 2009 wasn't focused on making people laugh as much as inventing new ways to talk about products and services. Who would have ever thought of giving life insurance as a gift, for instance? Successful campaigns redefined the mandate for creativity and put it against finding ways to engage with consumers thatwere relevant, meaningful, and had some utility beyond eliciting a chuckle. 
3. Competitiveness. Some marketers rejected the babble of talking about "enhancements" or selling imaginary benefits, and got back to talking about real differences with competing offers, sometimes going so far as to invent their own competition to crowd a market. "Why we're different/better" proved to be a far better basis for social conversations than whether folks thought an ad was good or not.
4. Content. Home run messages had meaning and relevance, not just entertainment value. One of the key winning ideas was to pull campaigns back to the old-fashioned idea of sampling, which helped make a beer message very compelling.
5. Clarity. The best ideas weren't focused exclusively on marketing communications, but the business behind it. 2009 gave us examples of clients linking marketing efforts to results (holding agencies accountable for results...gasp!), which the media interpreted as punitive. It wasn't. Could selling be emerging as the new marketing idea? It would be laughable if it weren't possible.
6. Call to Action. This was perhaps the most important quality of all. Home runs have objectively real actions attached to them, so they're memorable for what happened (and not for what people thought about them). So, for instance, an emotional attachment was less important than the offer to "try our toilet paper." Beyond all the babble about conversation for the sake of conversation, the most successful campaigns provided something after the talk.

The Six C's cut across the more common criteria by which brand and marketing strategies are discussed; I think that one of the biggest risks we run is when we try to do "a digital campaign," or look at a business challenge in terms of the marketing tools available to us. Home runs go above and beyond those common vendor definitions, and are assembled by sometimes unlikely (or unexpected) elements.

In basketball, there is a term that really separates the wheat from the chaff so to speak, and it’s all based on a person’s ability to dribble the ball and to a certain degree, shoot the ball.

Fundamentally, those are 2 very important aspects of basketball. Shooting and dribbling right? So what enhances those 2 skills? Well if you’re right handed, chances are you will dribble with your right hand and you will shoot with your right hand and you will favor the right side of the court.

From a marketing, and social media marketing standpoint. You will play to your strengths. You will go or you always go with your right hand. With what you already know.

Now back to the hoop court. The most dangerous players are those with enhances skills and abilities. These are players who have a “handle” and…can go left. In other words, as they are going down the court, they can dribble with their left hand or right with ease, and shoot with either hand as well.

One of the first things a coach looks for in an up and coming player is whether the player has a “handle” with his left hand. Can that player go left? It takes about a minute to assess and if you have 100 kids for example, trying out for 12 spots, it quickly becomes one of the main determinants.

Why is this important? Without the ability to dribble with your left hand, you essentially cut the court in half. It becomes useless, You can never go over to that half of the court because you cannot dribble with your left hand. So you favor the right side-all the time. I repeat all the time.

The same applies to  social media and marketing, you will lose unless you can bring more to the table than the next person. Oh, and you better be able to back it up.