From heartwarming and funny to wildly inventive, these five marketing campaigns used the power of digital to make an impact in 2015.
Domino’s pizza-delivery emoji campaign
Speak fluent emoji? In 2015, pizza giant Domino’s leveraged everyone’s favourite iPhone addiction by launching a new online system that invited customers to order their favourite fast food by tweeting a picture of a miniature pizza. The campaign, which asks pepperoni enthusiasts to provide payment information and topping preferences, succeeds because it capitalises on customer behaviour. It also ensures that ordering pizza is a breeze.
Businesses know that nothing strikes marketing gold like turning customers into advocates. Apple’s ‘Shot with iPhone 6’ campaign, a venture that blends social media and brand integration by inviting customers to shoot images with their iPhone 6 smartphones and share them online, with Apple then projecting the winners on giant billboards, is a case in point.
Barbie might be on every young girl’s wish list, but she’s also become a victim of her own outdated image. This year, Mattel’s new YouTube ad showed little girls pretending to be soccer coaches, doctors, and museum curators in an attempt to highlight Barbie’s own career success. The tagline? “When a girl plays with Barbie, she can imagine everything she can become.”
#LastSelfie for World Wildlife Fund
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) knows that few marketing strategies are as powerful as the ability to pair a wildly popular emerging technology with a heartfelt message. This year, the charity’s #LastSelfie campaign – which sent Snapchat images of endangered animals to its followers with the message that this could be the animals’ final appearance – reached 120 million Twitter users. Unsurprisingly, the charity reached its donation target in three days.
In the digital age, user-generated content can work wonders for building customer relationships and sending engagement levels sky-high. In 2015, Starbucks enlisted 53 cinematographers across 28 countries to shoot different instances during which friends interact at Starbucks locations. The project – Starbucks’ first global brand campaign – sparked 91 million social media impressions. It also inspired customers to visit Starbucks to capture their own stories.
In 2015, the winning marketing campaigns combined online and offline touchpoints, sparked an emotional connection, and addressed customer behaviour – a trifecta that scored points for brands. What marketing campaign resonated with you over the past 12 months?