4 Most Innovative Digital Marketing Campaign in 2017 That We Can Learn!
2017 saw many innovative and creative digital marketing campaigns which involved a range of methods and themes. Let’s take a look at 4 brands and the lessons we can learn from their digital campaigns.
#1 Heineken, Worlds Apart
Heineken’s social experiment sees people with widely contrasting political views sharing their differences. A feminist and an anti-feminist. An environmental activist and a climate change denier.
Given some flat-pack furniture, they have to build a bar. Can they do it without smashing each other’s brains? After they’re done, they’re given a choice to walk away or discuss their political differences over a beer. Aired on Facebook, the ad was viewed 3 million times within 8 days of its release and shared over 50,000 times in its first month.
Lesson: Execute a genuine social experiment and use it to illustrate your brand’s core values.
#2 Kellogg’s and Netflix, Eggo and Stranger Things
In Stranger Things’s first season, the character Eleven discovers Kellogg’s frozen waffles, Eggo, and she soon becomes obsessed with them. The product placement in the first season was unintentional, however, Kellogg’s jumped on the chance to tie their waffles to the hugely popular Netflix series when Season 2 approached. In addition to cross-promotional teaser videos, a Chrome extension blocking Stranger Things-related spoilers was launched. To further leverage the hype, Eggo created 9 waffle-specific recipes that corresponded to each episode of Season 2.
Lesson: Know your audience’s habits and needs and create relevant tools that will drive interest up.
#3 IKEA’s Place App
Augmented reality is one of the biggest trends in recent years and IKEA knows it. In 2017, they released the Place app that lets you virtually place a piece of furniture in your home. It’s a fantastic way of incorporating technology into a branding experience. Aside from the ‘wow’ factor, the app is also genuinely useful to customers.
Lesson: Don’t use technology for the sake of technology. Go a step further and create something that your customer will use long after the campaign is over.
Image credit: Ikea
#4 Nike’s #Breaking2
Aim: Sell the Vaporfly Elite running shoes.
On May 6, 2017, three runners set out to break the two-hour marathon barrier in a private race. Nike’s runners missed the mark by mere seconds but the documentary special that followed the runners garnered more than 2 trillion impressions. They may not have made the 2-hour cut but the sportswear brand succeeded in engaging viewers. You’ve got to hand it to them. They dared to push the boundaries. They dared to fail.
Lesson: Take risks and your audience will get on the ride with you.
