3 of the Best Marketing Campaigns (With Tips and Takeaways)

Nearly every great marketer has a few favorite marketing campaigns that come to mind. Maybe you even revisit them when you need inspiration for your own business. Over the past 70 years, major brands have run campaigns that built the basis for the future of their business. Some of the best marketing campaigns were developed over months of effort and strategy, keep that in mind when working with an agency or putting your own together. Faster does not mean better.

When you put this into perspective, every company could be one campaign away from building brand awareness and industry credibility that lasts a lifetime. If you are wondering how to produce engaging marketing campaigns, especially in the thick of the competitive digital age, let’s look at some of the top examples. Take the Dove campaign for example, we are still talking about it nearly a decade later.

In this article, we will break down the 3 of the best marketing campaigns from history, with actionable tips and takeaways you can incorporate into your own marketing strategy.

#1. Dove: Real Beauty Sketches (2013)

This Dove campaign took the world by storm when it was released, telling a deeper layer of the true mission behind Dove. In this online campaign ad, you watch an FBI forensic artist sketch two portraits of the same women.

In the first portrait, the woman describes herself to the artist. In the second portrait, strangers describe the woman to the artist. For both women, the portraits from the stranger’s descriptions turned out more attractive, radiant, and confident. This campaign is meant to show viewers that “you are more beautiful than you think.” Many of the participants cried because of how emotional it was, all they saw were the flaws, not the beauty.

So how exactly did the campaign gain so much success, bringing in over 114 million views? This video is the perfect representation of emotional storytelling and relatable messaging. Dove was not directly promoting their product, instead, they focused on building brand awareness.

Self-image, confidence, and insecurities are experienced by so many people today. In 2013, Dove was ahead of their time when it comes to speaking to customers’ pain points.

This video is also highly shareable, which is why it circulated across 25 languages, 33 Dove channels, and 110 countries. The marketing approach Dove took in its real beauty campaign was impactful, and it’s ridden with tips that could benefit other businesses in their strategies.

An excerpt from Dove’s website –

“More than 50 million people viewed the Dove video within 12 days of its release. To date, Real Beauty Sketches has been viewed almost 180 million times. We want the film to continue to inspire every single one of the 80% of women who feel anxious about how they look to reconsider their view of their own beauty and remember: you’re more beautiful than you think. It could be as easy as seeing ourselves through a stranger’s eyes.”

“What has stayed with me are the emotional reactions the women had when they viewed the composite sketches hung side by side. I think many of these brave women realised that they had a distorted self-perception that had affected parts of their lives in significant ways.”

-Gil Zamora FBI forensic artist

To date, this is one of the most powerful marketing campaigns I have ever seen. This campaign had raw emotion from the participants, powerful messaging, and best of all it wasn’t even about Dove’s products. It was a reminder that we’re often overly critical of ourselves, that we’re much greater than we believe. This campaign is the perfect reminder how important storytelling, empathy, and messaging is to marketing.

#2. Apple: Shot on iPhone (2015)

Apple saw amazing success when they released their shot-on iPhone campaign in 2015. The release of new and improved iPhone cameras was already exciting for loyal customers, but this campaign went a step above to engage users and enhance the visibility of user-generated iPhone photos.

Apple conducted a challenge for users to post their best photos on Instagram with the hashtag #ShotoniPhone. The company chose images from 77 users across 25 different countries and had them displayed on over 10,000 billboards across the globe.

This campaign brought in over 6.5 billion impressions at the time, and now Apple’s Instagram is solely used to promote this campaign alone. With over 17 million hashtags, this idea from Apple has stood the test of time. So why exactly was it so successful, and what is the main takeaway from Shot on iPhone?

Apple was clever in that they created a challenge that engaged their audience and generated exclusivity. People began using the hashtag to join the movement and increase their chances of ending up on a billboard. From a psychological standpoint, engagement was motivated by their customers ‘selfish’ motives which also benefited the company.

Not only was Apple able to gain hashtag traction on social media, but they also created over 10,000 billboards that became branded advertisements. Since the customers were directly involved in the challenge, people were more likely to seek these billboards out and share them on social media. This ad campaign was so successful that 7 years later the hashtags are still utilized across social.

Apple created a bulletproof campaign that answers the pressing question of customer motive while providing multiple barriers of advertisements for the new Apple iPhone camera. This is the main sweet spot between promotion and engagement tactics, which is something that many brands can implement in their own way.

#3. Coco-Cola: The Happiness Campaign (2009)

“Open Happiness” was a global campaign started in 2009 to encourage people to open a coke and share happiness with each other. The happiness campaign started in Brazil as a red food truck that roamed around town. Later, a commercial was created for The Happiness Campaign that encouraged a “sharing is caring” attitude for Coca-Cola drinkers.

Coca-Cola “Happiness Campaign” as described on their investor website –
“Central to Open Happiness is the simple notion of enjoying an ice-cold Coca-Cola and taking a small break from the day to connect with others,” said Katie Bayne, chief marketing officer, Coca-Cola North America. “With this new campaign, that’s exactly what we’re inviting people to do more often — open a Coke and share a little happiness.”
–source: Coca-Cola Investors News Release

Coca-Cola did many successful things with this campaign, one of them is tapping into their global marketplace. Like Apple, they created something that could then be leveraged for further advertisements and brand awareness. In Coke’s case, the big red truck.

The brand marketed a cause that they are both passionate about and one that relates to the experience of drinking a Coke. Instead of taking a solely product-based approach, they were able to rally behind the product and get their customers involved with the campaigns journey. When you consider clever ways to increase customer engagement while evoking emotion, you are likely to see an uptick in sales and brand longevity.

Conclusion

There are plenty of marketing campaigns that have stood out as iconic throughout the years. These three are some of the best marketing campaigns that got creative with their approach, delivery, and customer engagement. If you ever feel stuck with your strategy, take some time to reflect on what other successful businesses have been doing to build their brand awareness! Or reach out to us, we’ve developed strategies for companies across America. We have also audited strategies and given impartial feedback. We want to be a part of your success story!