Gone are the days of advertising in newspapers and magazines. Businesses have now moved their campaigns to the online world, and why wouldn’t they? Digital marketing agency ad campaigns increase brand awareness, build sales, and create customer loyalty in a way that print advertising can’t match. 

While digital marketing can provide your company with several benefits, figuring out the best way to execute a campaign isn’t easy. Let’s look at some examples of great digital marketing ad campaigns, which digital agencies worked on them, and discuss what makes them work. 

Tide’s Every Ad Is A Tide Ad Campaign – Saatchi & Saatchi New York

Everyone wants ad space at the Superbowl, but at $5,000,000 for thirty seconds, only a few companies can afford it. 

What’s better than one ad at the Superbowl? Claiming every ad as your own. This ad spot, starring Stranger Thing’s David Harbour, uses the cleanliness of other ads as it’s selling point. The video features Harbour in various situations you see in other stereotypical television ads. Throughout the spot, he points out a trend: everyone’s clothes are spotless because the people in the ads use Tide. 

If everyone in other ads uses Tide, every ad you see during the Superbowl is a Tide commercial. The genius of this ad is that from then on, anyone watching the game on television focused on the clothing of people in other ads and realized that Tide was right. In essence, by buying a one-minute spot, Tide turned the tables on every other company by turning their commercials into Tide ads. 

The social media reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Everyone began pointing out the truth of the ad and poking fun at the clean clothes of mechanics and other people. #EveryAdIsATideAd started trending and for the next week, Tide owned social media and dominated the most important marketing event of the year. 

Lessons For Your Business

Tide spent a lot of money on this campaign, but it paid off for them in a big way. 

This campaign showed businesses that you don’t have to match your competitors dollar for dollar. Instead, you can add value to your campaign by thinking outside of the box. Tide didn’t settle for thinking of a funny or provocative ad like every other Superbowl commercial. Instead, they decided to hijack every other ad by highlighting what their company does best. They created an ad based on making fun of the advertising industry and then used social media to spread their message to their target audience. 

The power of social media lies in its global outreach. Most Superbowl ads focus on the male 18-49 demographic, which this ad did as well. By creating an ad that they knew would go viral, however, Tide reached millions of households and organically made their way to their target customer. 

In this campaign, social media embraced Tide because the company didn’t take itself to seriously. It was fun, engaging, and absurd in all the right ways. It gave the viewer a glimpse into the staged world of advertising and then positioned Tide as the company that makes other ads possible. 


#DareToCreate Campaign From Crowd: A Regional Online Football Competition by Adidas

As part of their global Exhibit Pack campaign, adidas worked with Crowd to create a competition centered around user generated content.

To boost their product Exhibit Pack, which focuses on four football boots  named X, PREDATOR, COPA and NEMEZIZ, adidas developed a global campaign No Fakers, Creators Only, which featured major football starts such as Paulo Dybala, Lionel Messi and Mo Salah. To support the major campaign, the brand worked with Crowd to develop an online competition to motivate fans to share user generated content.

Crowd worked with adidas to develop the competition rules, look and feel as well as the competition prize. This included creating a microsite, using the micro experience platform Wyng, where fans would upload a video of themselves showing their best football skills for a chance to receive a pair of Exhibit Pack boots of their choice and a signed Real Madrid jersey.

Together, adidas and Crowd delivered an engaging online competition that generated buzz about Exhibit Pack and provided adidas with further data to move forward their customer retention efforts.

State Street Global Advisors’ Fearless Girl Campaign – McCann New York

Few advertising campaigns make global headlines and become a rallying cry for a generation, but State Street Global Advisors’ Fearless Girl campaign did both. On International Woman’s Day, a bronze statue mysteriously appeared on Wall Street in New York City. The statue depicts a young girl staring fear down the Wall Street bull. 

Due to the discussion of a lack of female representation in the corporate world, along with studies that show that women make 3/4ths of what men make, the campaign aimed to showcase the need for diversity on corporate boards. After the statue appeared, State Street sent a letter to thousands of companies to request that they increase boardroom diversity.

Using #SheMakesADifference, the campaign reached 745 million Instagram impressions 12 hours after the statue appeared. In only 12 weeks, the campaign reached 4.6 billion Twitter impressions.

Their campaign brought together social issues, social media, and the needs of their core customers into one marketing strategy. They delivered their message in a heartfelt and genuine way. 

Lessons For Your Business

Never underestimate the power of social media. A majority of Americans now use social media, with the bulk of the traffic going to Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Social media also drives buying decisions, especially among Millenials, who are now the dominant group in the workforce. Creating digital marketing agency ad campaigns that become viral on these websites and that are share-worthy does more than giving your website traffic and your company shares. You’ll humanize your business. 

State Street humanized its business by picking the right spot at the right time. They created a powerful visual and let social media work its magic without grandstanding. Part of what made this campaign so successful was the fact that the company stayed out of the way. They let the message speak for itself. 

When delving into social issues, you need to do two things: be careful and genuine. Here, State Street chose an issue that they were passionate about and that transcends politics. Their message is one of hope, courage, and inclusiveness. 


Major Tom’s Major Tips And Tricks For Preparing Amazon Prime Day 2019

Amazon Prime Day 2019, was one of the biggest opportunities for brands to increase sales.

Since initiated, Amazon Prime Day has been held in early July. In 2018, Prime Day ran from 3PM ET on Monday, July 16 through Tuesday, July 17. The official date hasn’t been released last year, but it’s rumored to take place on July 8 and last about a day – and a half.

If you’re a vendor or seller, you need to set up Prime Day deals now. Senior Paid Search Strategist at Major Tom, Calvin Chan shares some tips for the major event, as below. Don’t miss your potential opportunities!

Here’s what you need to do optimize your Amazon listings.

• Write product titles that fully describe the product so the user knows what to expect when they land on the product page after their query.
• Have a minimum of three high-quality images.
• Get customer reviews — at least 15. This can help boost SEO. Reviews act as social proof and help with user experience, which is what Amazon is all about. Reviews are heavily factored in terms of product rankings.
• Aim for a star rating of 3.5 and up.
Ensure inventory prior to launch — so that you don’t sell out too quickly due to the high demand and traffic.


Heathrow Airport’s The Heathrow Bears Return Campaign – Havas

With the holidays around the corner, it’s only fitting that we should include a Christmas campaign on our list. Over the past several years, holiday commercials have lacked a certain spirit. Lately, it seems like companies have worried more about leading with their product and leaving the holiday cheer at the door. Luckily, Heathrow Airport always comes through with a reminder of what the holidays are all about: family. 

This ad is a continuation in the story of the Heathrow bears. In the third edition, the bears find themselves in Florida trying to celebrate Florida, but things aren’t right. After visiting with their family online, they decide to fly into Heathrow to see their family in London. 

The ad itself started as a television spot, but Heathrow has taken it a step further by dedicating an entire section of its website to the Heathrow bears. You can see their family trees, watch the ads, and take a quiz to see which bear you are. You can post the results on social media, expanding the campaigns reach and making it an international 

This campaign does a lot of things well. First, it positions Heathrow as the airport of the holidays. Anyone with family in the United Kingdom probably has a memory of flying into Heathrow and being welcomed by their famous Christmas trees. Heathrow does an excellent job of evoking those memories without forcing them onto the viewer. 

Heathrow also stayed on-brand by emphasizing their message of flying to people, not to places. Heathrow wants flyers to view their families and friends as their destination, not the airport. This ad campaign as a whole does an excellent job of pushing that message. 

Lessons For Your Business

This campaign provides some powerful lessons for companies that want to run digital campaigns. First, your business needs to ask a simple but powerful question: what is our message? While it’s a simple question, the answer might surprise you. 

Most businesses know what they sell and have an idea of who their target customers are, but it’s harder to pinpoint a message. In Heathrow’s case, the message is that they are there to help you reach your destination, not be the destination themselves. Instead of taking the popular route of smashing their customer’s over the head with it, Heathrow’s approach is to subtly allow the viewer of the ad to discover it themselves.

When you run a campaign, you need to know your message and trust that your customers will understand it. Build around your message, never let up on it, but also, don’t beat your customers over the head with it. Let them discover it organically. 


Skittles’ Exclusive The Rainbow – DDB Chicago 

We’ve mentioned that companies should work to find their ideal customer before, but Skittles took that idea to a new extreme. Instead of spending five million dollars for a Superbowl ad for millions, they created their ad for one person named Marcos Menendez, a real-life Skittles lover from Canoga Park, California. 

This campaign uses two psychological tricks. First, it takes advantage of the idea that what you can’t see is better than what you can. Your imagination will fill in fantastical details with a slight nudge.

Second, it takes advantage of the human desire to experience something exclusive, which is a marketing tactic that DDB Chicago executes in several campaigns, making the hiring of this agency a smart move by Skittles. 

Apple understands this principle better than most companies. Sure, they make quality phones, but they work hard to sell consumers the idea of being a part of something exclusive, almost to the point of turning their product into a counter-culture. 

Skittles created an ad for one person but turned that into an ad for everyone by showing Menendez’s reactions. The viewer lived vicariously through Menendez and felt like they were sitting in on something exclusive.

It was a unique campaign by Skittles that effectively made their product the candy of choice for those that wanted something different than the run of the mill chocolate bar. It also showed the company’s commitment to its fans and put the thought into the viewers’ minds that their customer base was part of an elite club. 

Lessons For Your Business 

Skittles achieved two things that, if you can execute them properly, will help make sure that your campaigns are a success. First, give your products a feeling of exclusivity. If you aren’t a major player in your niche yet, set your product up as an alternative to the more popular choices. You see this happen in marketing all the time: 

  • Buzzwords like exclusive, different, rebellion, revolution, etc
  • Images that show everyone in line, with one person breaking away to something exciting and new
  • Commercials that use statements like “you don’t like to follow the crowd

These strategies allow you to turn a weakness (lower market share) into a positive (exclusiveness). Of course, if you use this strategy, you’ll find yourself where Apple is now. How do you sell people on exclusiveness when you become the leader?

Skittles also used the viewer’s imagination to sell their products. Much like Heathrow in the previous example, your company should trust their audience to find the desired message without having to beat them over the head with it. Times have changed. In the ’80s and ’90s, advertisers were told to drive their message home without making the viewers have to dig it out.

Consumers no longer want to feel spoon-fed. Trust your audience and customers and they will reward you. The metrics behind the success of Skittle’s ad campaign show that this strategy works. Skittles saw a 7% rise in sales in the weeks following this campaign and earned five billion impressions on social media. 


Kota Does It Again – A Successful Launch Of Jamie Oliver’s 3rd Book “VEG”

For the third time in a row, London based creative agency Kota created the marketing campaign for Jamie’s latest book “VEG” published by Penguin Books.

It was rolled out internationally on 22nd August, across various platforms including out of home billboards, digital displays and all forms of online advertising. Kota created a campaign in line with the book’s philosophy that vegetarian cooking is for everyone – from gym bunnies to couch potatoes. Bold visuals and playful tone of voice appeal to those who already love veggie dishes, as well as to the ones who still hesitate to make the switch.

As the book is full of vibrant, colourful recipes, the creative highlighted this by focusing on the cut-out dishes alongside a selection of bold primary colours which stood out from the usual colour palettes seen in many other vegetarian books.

As Penguin Books’ Marketing Manager Annabel Wilson commented on working with Kota,

Each campaign delivery has been to a fantastic standard and all completely
different to one another. They have brought each book to life for digital advertising and out of home in really creative and innovative ways.


How The Magic of These Digital Marketing Agency Ad Campaigns Can Be Captured? 

Creating digital marketing agency ad campaigns requires a lot of thought, creativity, and an understanding of what customers want.

You need both information and impeccable timing if you want your campaign to catch on with a global audience. You also need to keep your finger on the pulse of current trends in the advertising world. 

DAN can help you with that. We’re putting together a community of the best marketing companies in the world to share information.

If you want to reach advertising insiders, potential job candidates, and learn more about our digital network, you’re more than welcome to give us a shout!

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