Understatement time for you: marketing has changed a ton in the last five years. We love to learn from great examples. Here are 4 awesome marketing campaign examples to learn from.
Social media’s power to drive campaign success into uncharted territory has resulted in a massive shift in content marketing. The best campaigns have capitalized on the elements that make content shareable on social media.
Below, we’ve taken four very good marketing campaigns, and have broken down key elements that contributed to their success.
Although some of these marketing campaign examples were created by the biggest companies and agencies in the world, they succeeded not because of how much they cost, but because they understood fundamental truths about social media users.
Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”
If someone walked up to you today and said “I’m on a horse,” where would your mind go. It’s 2015, and my mind would still go the Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign, which premiered over five years ago.
The 33-second video depicts a shirtless man addressing the women of the world as the scene changes behind him, from the shower to a boat to the beach.
How successful was the ad?
It was watched almost 6 million times on the first day
Has over 50 million YouTube views to date
Made Old Spice’s YouTube channel the most popular brand channel ever at the time
After the original video, Old Spice also launched a YouTube response campaign which saw the “Old Spice Guy” respond to public questions and requests in no less than 180 personalized videos. These videos earned an astounding 40 million combined views within a week. All this from a personal hygiene brand!
So what are the main lessons you can draw from Old Spice’s marketing campaign? Be memorable and involve your audience.
Of course, there are marketing formulas that have been proven to work time and time again:
Appeal to your target buyers
Present your product in real-life situations
Make the ad easy to follow
Leave them talking about your product
And here’s what Old Spice did:
Old Spice targeted females with their ad when the product is for males.
They didn’t focus on real-life scenarios, instead of creating a fantastical situation that most people couldn’t relate to.
It wasn’t easy to follow, actually forcing the viewer to pay close attention to each moving part and probably watch it several times.
The catchphrase “I’m on a horse” had nothing to do with the product
Old Spice didn’t just bend conventional marketing practices, they avoided them entirely, creating something far more impressive in the process. You wanted to play the video, again and again, to try and see how it was accomplished.
You wanted to show it to friends and talk about it. It was so interesting and shareable that brands have been chasing this model ever since it aired.
Then, they did something even smarter. They created the response campaign to bring their viewers into the experience. Everyone who loved the ad had the opportunity to be a part of it. Users flocked to submit questions in the hopes for a direct interaction with the Old Spice Man.
People love to be a part of something popular or viral. It’s like being part of a studio audience or being mentioned by a celebrity on Twitter. Not only is the experience enjoyable for them, but it’s also something they want to share with their friends and followers.
By creating these personalized videos, Old Spice turned a successful brand video into a shareable social media campaign.
Dollar Shave Club’s “Our Blades Are F***ing Great”
It’s the story of the brand video that launched the company.
Michael Dubin decided to start a company that sold cheap razors and shipped them to your door. He wanted to bring his company to the world and decided to do it with a YouTube video in which he, the CEO, explained the business. He called that video “Our Blades are F***ing Great,” and launched it to the world.
About 12,000 people signed up for the service within the 48 hours that followed.
The video is funny, catchy and clever, but it also explains the fundamentals of their business model and how they differ from traditional razor vendors.
Since its launch, the video has earned:
Over 18 million video views
Over 200,000 Facebook shares
Over 80,000 Facebook comments and more than 110,000 Likes
Perhaps most impressively, Dollar Shave Club managed all of this without really having an existing audience or following online. This video started it all.
So what are the main lessons you can draw from the Dollar Shave Club marketing campaign?
Distinguish your brand. Know your audience.
The video cost $4,500 to make. They didn’t need high production value or special effects to make an impression. They just knew their audience.
Dollar Shave Club isn’t just marketing to men of shaving age; they’re marketing to tech-savvy younger men, the audience most likely open to buying razors online. “Young men” is written all over the video.
There are toys in the background. They swear and use humor. There’s a machete. They make fun of tennis. It ends with a party. This isn’t an energy drink ad. There aren’t explosions and extreme sports. But it nails the target demographic in a simple, straightforward way.
People often talk about targeting on social media. You can target your content once it’s created, or you can target it from the outset. Doing the latter made this video into a hit.
K-Mart’s “Ship My Pants”
K-Mart, where your mom used to go shopping for groceries and socks, right? Well, if that is the way the store was perceived a few years ago, the company’s “Ship My Pants” marketing campaign went a long way in changing that.
In a YouTube video campaign, the company had people in their store talking about shipping their pants. Yes, K-Mart used toilet humor to highlight their online shipping. They even worked to spread the hashtag #ShipMyPants.
Does this crude humor actually work on people? Well…
13 million YouTube views in its first week
22 million total YouTube views
Over 400,000 Facebook comments and 890,000 Likes
Nearly 600,000 Facebook shares
So what are the main lessons to draw from the K-Mart marketing campaign?
Use humor. Take risks.
With social media, users are empowered to skip over an ad they don’t find interesting. This puts the onus on brands to somehow catch people off guard or otherwise keep their attention. Humor is one of the most effective ways to do that.
K-Mart used humor in a way that you might not have expected from their brand. While it’s easy to call it juvenile, the results speak for themselves. The humor made the video so shareable that more people shared it on Facebook than commented on it. That type of engagement is invaluable to the brand.
This marketing campaign was also special because it was a risk. It wasn’t just a risk for K-Mart, it was a risk for any brand.
Swear words and childish jokes isn’t something most retail brands would strive to be associated with. But social media is about creating discussion. They took a chance and it paid off.
WestJet’s “Real-Time Giving”
I was in a meeting when I first saw WestJet’s Real-Time Giving ad, which went live during the 2013 Christmas season. I watched the ad with a group of people and, while most of us barely managed to hold it together.
The ad shows a WestJet Santa Claus asking people what they wanted for Christmas before their flight. Then, by the time they landed, the WestJet team had purchased all of their gifts, which tumbled down the baggage claim to everyone’s delight.
Little boys got the toys they asked for while parents snagged the big screen televisions and cameras they had only dreamed of.
The ad was powerful, and it showed in its popularity. The video earned:
Over 200,000 YouTube Likes, and over 20,000 comments
Over 40 million total YouTube views
Over 4.5 million additional views on other WestJet videos after its launch, and over 30,000 new YouTube subscribers
42.2MM Twitter impressions specific to #WestJetChristmas
Over 2 million combined Facebook, Likes, Shares
and
Comments
WestJet also saw an 86 percent increase in sales compared to the same period one year earlier, a rise they attribute at least in part to the ad.
This ad was an absolute, blow-out hit.
So what are the main lessons to draw from the WestJet Campaign?
Play to people’s emotions. Don’t be afraid to sideline your product.
Emotional stimuli, happiness, sadness, inspiration, anger and beyond, have been proven to activate the human nervous system and boost social transmission. In other words, if you can cause an emotional reaction in people, they’re far more likely to share your content.
This notion is clear when you look at what gets shared online. Go to a website like Upworthy or any other content aggregator and see what gets the most attention.
The airline also made their service a secondary element of the ad, which might seem counterintuitive to many brands but can actually pay off big time on social media.
Many people are inherently hesitant to share brand-heavy content on social networks. We want to share high-quality content with our friends and followers, not try to sell them on anything.
Putting your product to the side in favor of rich content is a great way to increase your likelihood of getting shared while still making an impact on brand awareness and sales.
If you have any doubts, WestJet’s 86 percent increase in sales after the release of the ad should cast those aside. Dove’s ‘Real Beauty Sketches’ are another great example.
The bottom line
Remember these 10 lessons
Ignore conventional marketing. Instead be memorable.
Make your audience a part of the campaign.
Distinguish your brand from the competition.
Know your audience and cater ads to their interests.
Use humor.
Take risks.
Play to people’s emotions.
Don’t be afraid to put your product on the sidelines.
Support a meaningful cause and share it with your audience.
Try to start a movement with your brand at the center of it.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing created by remarkable customer service. And put it to good use.
It’s up to you to keep improving your creative marketing strategies. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
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7 Secrets to the Lego Blog Marketing Campaigns … Effective Marketing?
14 Jaw-Dropping Guerilla Marketing Lessons and Examples
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.