Media Credit: Old Spice
You’re not you when you’re hungry! Well, maybe you are, but I’m sure you’ve heard this countless times.
This tagline is a core memory for many people. But why do some of the ads we receive daily go viral and some don’t? It’s all in the way some companies build their content marketing strategies. Instead of spamming customers, they create an experience that puts them at the heart of the brand’s messaging.
Let’s go through some of the most famous marketing campaigns.
Media Credit: Snickers
Snickers – You’re Not You When You’re Hungry
In 2009, Snickers realized its brand needed to leave a bigger impact on potential customers, a reason for them to choose it as a snack. To do that, Snickers partnered with BBDO to create a new marketing strategy. This campaign centered around hunger-induced mood swings.
This theme was brought to life through a series of commercials showing people transforming into bizarre caricatures of themselves when they fail to satisfy their hunger. The value this campaign proposes is establishing that Snickers can solve that problem and help you become yourself again.
The ads focus on customers and their needs by using humor to address a simple aspect that can talk to everyone, especially teenagers. Prior to this campaign, Snickers’ target audience was mainly young males. This was e a huge shift from that narrow target to a broader market. Additionally, marketing efforts have been kept fresh with limited edition flavors and seasonal promotions.
Media Credit: Old Spice
Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
During the early 2000s, Old Spice held a fair position in the US market for men’s hygiene products. However, it was seen as unfashionable and was largely depending on Procter & Gamble aging reputation.
In 2006, Wieden+Kennedy replaced Saatchi & Saatchi as the brand’s advertising agency. After a long time of being associated with a more traditional image, W&K decided to add the humor component into the brand’s messaging, using every stereotype of masculinity. By provoking men to purchase what would make them smell like a man, the campaign "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" was created.
Sales of Old Spice body wash, which were already on the rise, rose by 55% over the three months following the first TV commercial. After that, P&G made another clever step: its marketers used Twitter’s promoted trend ad platform to ask Old Spice followers to submit questions for the Old Spice Man on Twitter and Facebook, as well as on Reddit and Digg. People voted for their favorite questions, and the winners received personal replies from Isaiah Mustafa, the man on the ad. The interaction they got was considered a huge social media win.
But then things took a turn: After its major spike in sales when the campaign was launched, communication with the audience dropped, which was a real mistake. P&G didn’t use what it had properly; instead of keeping the engagement with the followers on a more personal level, they faded from the scene and stopped interacting with their followers.
Media Credit: Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola: Share a Coke
While Old Spice didn’t take its communication with its followers seriously, Coca-Cola knew that communication is the most effective way to maintain its position in a market saturated with choices, especially among younger consumers.
In the early 2010s, The “Share a Coke” campaign replaced the traditional Coca-Cola logo with common names, encouraging consumers to find and share a Coke with friends, family, and even strangers.
The campaign was widely spread on social media. prompting consumers to share images of their personalized Coke bottles on platforms, such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, using #ShareACoke hashtag, which fostered a sense of community around the brand.
One of the strong points “Share a Coke” campaign had was its adaptability to diverse markets. Coca-Cola replaced logos with culturally relevant names, showcasing an understanding of local possible and current audiences. According to Coca-Cola, over 80 countries participated, resulting in more than a billion personalized bottles sold. I still have one my friends gave me with my name on it.
Yet the “Share a Coke” campaign also had its share of challenges. The process of producing personalized bottles on a massive scale presented significant obstacles in its production process to accommodate the number of names and variations and overcome distribution and stock management challenges. And, of course, even then not everyone’s name made it on the bottle of a Coke.
Media Credit: Oreo
Oreo: Dunk in the Dark
“Twist, Lick, Dunk.” For 33 years now, this has been Oreo’s tagline to show the best way to eat its Oreo cookies. After all this time, Oreo was still able to show that the brand still owns its position in the marketplace.
Oreo played it simple but clever with a tweet during the 2013 Super Bowl.Amid an intense third quarter between American football teams, a power outage at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans left the stadium in darkness for about 30 minutes leaving, TV viewers confused as to why the football coverage was suddenly cut off.
Oreo acted fast and smart, posting a simple tweet on its Twitter account. The post showed a dimly lit Oreo cookie with the words “You can still dunk in the dark.”
The day after it was posted on Twitter, the tweet gained around 15,000 retweets while the Facebook post recorded approximately 20,000 likes. The “Dunk in The Dark” image also garnered $525 million-worth of earned media impressions. The Huffington Post even said that “one of the most buzz-worthy ads of the 2013 Super Bowl…wasn’t even a commercial―it was a mere tweet from Oreo during the blackout.”
Media Credit: acoblund/Istockphoto
Give Them Something to Think About
Launching a marketing campaign should never be your goal finding ways to use the campaign to create a rich communication with the audience is a main key that marketing strategies should consider.
With so many ads being shared every second, marketers and advertisers need to spice things up by looking beyond the traditional ways of advertising. Speaking to the customers’ experiences and using their ways of communication to reach them are key for brands to have campaigns that not only make an impact but also stick in their target audiences’ minds.
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