This holiday season, luxury brands hoped to make deeper impressions by letting consumers interact and discover rather than simply push products.

Interactive billboards, scavenger hunts and artfully designed Web sites let a consumer into a world and encouraged exploration and discovery rather than appearing as overt sales pitches. Consumers are saturated with advertisements and marketing in the holiday season, so laying off of products and guiding consumers to their own decisions helps consumers feel like they are avoiding the commercialization of the holidays.

Here are the top five luxury brand holiday efforts of the 2014 holiday season, in alphabetical order.

Bulgari takes consumers hunting
Italian jeweler Bulgari is bringing consumers home for the holidays through an interactive feature that explores #RomanTreasures.

Centered on a microsite, Bulgari?s campaign enables consumers to virtually travel to iconic spots within the ancient city, such as the Spanish Steps and the Colosseum, by way of 360-degree imagery, allowing them to send social media postcards from each locale. While this effort does enable consumers to discover holiday gift ideas, consumers must first embark on a journey to find the jewels, taking the concept of gift guide beyond a flat edit (see story).

Burberry goes big to encourage consumer interaction
British fashion label Burberry is bringing holiday cheer to London?s Piccadilly Circus with an interactive 3D experience for pedestrians.

A digital billboard, which followed a star-studded festive social film, will be displayed on the curved screen at Piccadilly and depict computer generated images of Burberry?s heritage scarf, which consumers will be able to personalize and interact with using their mobile phone. This large-scale display will likely be hard to miss in the heavily trafficked area of London, potentially leading to sales for Burberry (see story).

Montblanc promotes kindness, not products
Germany?s Montblanc is asking its enthusiasts to take a moment to put a smile on the faces of others through acts of kindness this holiday season.

In addition to gift giving and time spent with loved ones, the holiday season is often a reflective one when consumers are more aware and appreciative of acts of compassion. For the holiday season, Montblanc has concentrated its holiday effort around the notion of inspiring kindness in a host of ways that do not necessarily need to be wrapped and placed under the tree (see story).

Peninsula shows off its artistic side
The Peninsula Hotels is offering its patrons the ?Golden Ticket? to spread holiday cheer.

The hotel chain expanded on its SnowPage promotion with a festive microsite that includes a list of holiday offers and other festive activities in each hotel, as well as a behind-the-scenes video. The interactivity and design of the site will strengthen the bond with consumers and position a holiday stay at a Peninsula hotel as a memorable experience. The chain is also selling limited-edition models, unique to each hotel, of SnowPage (see story).

Saks goes into a deep freeze
Department store chain Saks Fifth Avenue transformed its New York flagship into a ?winter palace? for the 2015 holiday season.

This year?s concept takes the world?s natural and manmade wonders such as the Roman Colosseum and The Great Barrier Reef and morphs them into wintry fantasies. To unveil its holiday theme, Saks will stage a theatrical light show event outside its flagship location, livestreamed on its Web site and inside its network of department stores across the United States, and now in Canada. Saks also offered a digital hub for its consumers outside of New York.

Saks continued its all-inclusive holiday marketing effort with a digital hub ripe with interaction. The hub included a YourMoji emoji keyboard for mobile devices, a holiday music playlist and more (see story).