The Top 5 Marketing Campaigns That Will Blow You Away

Creating an inspirational marketing campaigns can get really tiring, we know. That’s why we decided to motivate you a bit, and share our top 5 favorite and innovative campaigns! Be ready to take some notes!

1. OREO

In 2013, Oreo changed its brand image and probably inspired many brands to level up their creative strategies (especially on social media). Although their famous and culturally relevant tweets and Facebook posts might seem simple and spontaneous, their social success is a result of an overhaul of a large CPG company’s marketing philosophy and processes. So, what’s the story of Oreo becoming the standard bearer for “real-time marketing”?

 

Oreo’s key to success were social media moves – including a game-changing (now may even cult) Super-Bowl tweet. In an era in which brands were told they should be acting like people, Oreo took that seriously and developed a real personality. Let’s go through some of their bold rebranding moves!

 

The Famous Tweet That Won The Super Bowl

On February 3, 2013, the San Francisco 49ers played the Baltimore Ravens to decide the NFL champion for the year. During the game, a blackout turned off power in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. In case you somehow missed this, this is what Oreo tweeted:

And they won the Super Bowl with this tweet, period. Here are some numbers as a proof to how important this tweet was:

-The tweet was retweeted almost 15 000 times;

-Oreo’s Twitter following increased by about 8000;

-The post on Facebook garnered nearly 20 000 likes;

-Oreo went from having 2000 Instagram followers pre-game to 36000 post-game.

Impressive, huh?

 

This real-time marketing effort wasn’t just a shot in the dark (nor the power outage wasn’t anticipated). VP of Cookies at Mondelez International, Lisa Mann, explained their carefully architected social media strategy – as they chose the Super Bowl to kick off a campaign, they decided to have a social media command center for the event, so that they can respond to real time buzz.

 

This 15-people-command center was within agency 360i’s Tribeca officies, and included representation from all of Oreo’s agencies (Weiden + Kennedy, Mediavest, Weber Shandwick and 360i), as well as several members of the brand team. When the blackout happened, they saw it as an opportunity. And they used it well.

The Daily Twist

The instant Super Bowl ad followers Oreo’s 100-day program called Daily Twist, that began in June and ended on October. The idea of the campaign was responding to real-time happenings for 100 days. Some of those real-time events included Mars Rover landing, The Dark Knight premiere, Delta Aquarid Meteor Shower, Elvis Week, Pluto loses its rank, and many more. Check out the whole campaign!

What can we learn from Oreo? Look for important or funny daily events and turn them into shareable content. There’s a snowstorm in New York? Be responsive and make a funny and relatable post about it. People are arguing whether the dress is black and blue or white and gold? Make a funny post that everyone would share. In short – look for opportunities everywhere, and think outside of the box!

2. MELBOURNE METRO TRAINS

Promoting rail safety? Naah, nothing inspiring about that, just create a regular poster for subway stations. Well, not the strategy Melbourne Metro Trains wanted to use. How about creating one of the funniest (and now most iconic) games ever? You must have played McCann’s Dumb Ways To Die at least once. If not, download it and have fun.

What was the idea behind the game? Trains travel in a straight line, right? If you, somehow, get hit by a train, you must have done something really wrong, which makes getting hit by a train one of the dumbest ways to die.

 

Rather than a typically earnest public service announcement, McCann opted for a mix of offbeat humor, a catchy tune and a collection of amiable animated characters to launch their message. Within 24 hours of its launch, the Dumb Ways To Die song reached the top 10 chart of iTunes and was ranked number six on the singer/songwriter category on the global iTunes chart 48 hours later.

 

The fist game app climbed to number one in 22 countries including the US, UK, Canada and Australia, with over 103 million downloads and 7 billion unique plays coming from every country in the world.

 

The impact of the campaign? More than 127 million people have stated that they would be safer around trains because of the campaign. Oh, and not to mention that it was the most awarded campaign in the history of Cannes!

 

What can we learn from Dumb Ways To Die? Do you think that your product/service is not interesting enough to people? Do you think that there’s not much that can be done with your product/service or that your product/service is way too serious for an engaging campaign? Think again. If you want to raise awareness about an issue that’s been addressed many times all over the world, maybe it’s time to do something that no one did before. Unleash your childish humor, there’s no stupid idea and there are no boundaries with what you can do!

3. RED BULL

Do you ever think about creating an edgy marketing campaign? Like, a live-stream- of-a-real-person-jumping-from-24-miles-above-the-Earth edgy? Red Bull is all about extreme adventures, hence their motto “Red Bull gives you wings” is very popular all over the world.

In case you didn’t know, Red Bull is an Austrian company. Their key to success worldwide? Guerilla marketing. They utilized Red Bull Wings Team to hand out free drinks to college students. This strategy was wildly successful, resulting in a rapid increase in sales. Since then, Red Bull is known for its crazy marketing strategies targeting young urban professionsionals.

 

Wings To Stratos

In an environment where it’s really hard to capture consumers’ attention, Red Bull managed to captivate the world with its Stratos project. In October 2012, they helped Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner freefall jump from 24 miles above the Earth, breaking five records. Baumgartner became the first human to break the sound barrier without engine power, for example.

 

Red Bull’s key to success is thinking of marketing as an action, not as messaging. They don’t talk about stuff, they just go ahead and do stuff. Even if you are one of those people that have strong opinions about not taking energy drinks, you have to admit that Red Bull’s campaigns are ingenious. Red Bull did not only create a great PR stunt and gained materials for their future marketing campaigns with Stratos project, they also made history.

Stratos project generated millions in earned media and helped boost sales. According to research firm IRI, their sales rose 7% to $1.6 billion, and they sold more than 5.39 billion cans in 2013.

What can we learn from Red Bull? Maybe we cannot send a man to jump from Stratos, but we sure can have more “don’t talk, do things that matter” attitude. When creating your next campaign, think about high-impact events that could have high response rate and that would be inline with your brand message. And once more, think outside of the box.

4. WORLDWIDE BREAST CANCER

Sure, raising awareness about any type of cancer is of paramount importance in our society. And yes, you are doing a good thing if you use social media channels to share a photo with a pink ribbon and remind your fans about World Cancer Day. But is there anything else that you could do? Something that would actually inspire people to get checked?

Know Your Lemons

Worldwide Breast Cancer’s campaign has recruited an unlikely ally to boost breast cancer awareness: the lemon. The lemon metaphors present a clear visual way of showing breast cancer signifiers, helping with the difficulties of self-checking. Twelve lemon images alert people to less well-known symptoms, such as change in the shape of the breast or dimpling on the skin:

Seems interesting? Check out the rest of the campaign!

What can we learn from Know Your Lemons? Serious health issues should be addressed regularly by every brand out there. But instead of sharing a simple image with some educational copy, go a step further and create something of use to your fans!

5. SPOTIFY

User Generated Content is a huge thing in 2018, and you should follow Spotify’s example. Yes, there are many ways to use the UGC (like reposting images your fans created), but can you name even one campaign of that kind? We taught so. Spotify found the way to make it memorable.

 

Thanks 2016, It’s Been Weird

In 2016, Spotify used data to create catchy and funny UGC campaign that you could not not love. Like this one:

Some of the ads were hyper-localized facts and figures. For example, a poster they used in the UK was: “Dear 3.749 people who streamed It’s The End Of The World As We Know It the day of the Brexit Vote. Hang in there.”.

One in the USA was: “Dear person who made a playlist called One Night Stand With Jeb Bush Like He’s a Bond Girl in a European Casino. We have so many questions.”. Some executions were super-localized, for example one New York poster: “Dear person in the Theater District who listened to the Hamilton soundtrack 5.376 times this year. Can you get us tickets?”

 

2018 Goals

To create a UCG campaign as good as Spotify’s. Spotify CMO Seth Farbman said that data and news showed that there was a lot of fatigue and exhaustion with all the events in 2017. Rather than going back and reliving that exhaustion, they thought to look forward and bring in a spirit of hope and optimism. Take a Swedish billboard as an example: “Leave 2017 behind with as good conscience as the person who streamed Ain’t My Fault by Zara Larsson 1-355 times this year.”

Or be as humble as this person:

Or exercise more than this person:

What can we learn from Spotify? User Generated Content is huge now, but you have to think differently than all those brands out there. Do you have some data from your users that are funny or educative? Use them in a campaign!

 

We hope that these five examples were inspirational enough for you to create another huge campaign that we are going to write about in the near future!