10 marketing campaigns that we are jealous of

Some marketing campaigns are able to surprise us and get people talking! They stand out by being innovative, demonstrating a surprising amount of audacity and in some cases, confusing people that are exposed to them. Without further ado, here are the marketing campaigns that have captured our attention in recent years.

10 awesome marketing campaigns

1) Agropur/Natrel and its history of lactose intolerance 

The first campaign to be highlighted is the one led by Lg2 for Agropur and Natrel in 2017, featuring Hervey Normand, a dairy enthusiast who discovers with horror that he is lactose intolerant.

This campaign aims to promote the arrival of lactose-free products created by the brand and has a truly unique way of presenting the new items. In the ads, everything is illustrated in the form of a tale, perfectly combining useful information and fun content. Distinguishing themselves from traditional, charming commercials, Natrel and Agropur use storytelling to its fullest potential.

The humanization of the brand and the empathy that emanates from the narration are an ingenious way of breaking with traditional advertising which devotes more time to the product and less to the individual.

2) Le Devoir needs you

Finding itself a victim of the decline in popularity of traditional media at the expense of new technologies, Montreal newspaper Le Devoir experienced major financial troubles in 2016. Looking to draw attention to its situation and invite donations from the public, the newspaper hired L’Écorce, a local agency, to launch a support campaign.

On Thursday, May 18th, 2017, Le Devoir redirected its readers to a fake news site. Quickly, the reader was then redirected to the URL JeSoutiensLeDevoir.com.

Once on the site, one of the spokespersons explained why we all need Le Devoir and why it needs us. Then, they offered the reader to subscribe or make a donation.

What is so genius about this campaign? First, the spokesperson’s comments took the form of daily trivia, which is an interesting way of appealing to readers' emotions. Secondly, the newspaper skillfully built its marketing campaign around the theme of truth, a theme that refers to the flagship value of the newspaper: its journalistic standards.

3)  Dove Real Beauty Sketches: Between creativity, beauty and sincerity

Dove's Real Beauty Sketches beauty campaign asked women to describe themselves to an artist sitting behind a curtain, who would then draw their portrait based on the description. Then, a second portrait of this same person was created based on the comments of another individual. What came out of this? The second portrait was much more flattering than the first, reflecting the harshness with which women judge their own physical appearance.

Exceeding 163 million views, this campaign was a resounding success. Dove has succeeded in showing the sincerity with which they care about their audience, a sentiment that is shown with a lot of conviction on the screen. In addition, everything is presented with an aestheticism and simplicity that give an undeniable charm to this campaign.

4) Kijiji and its musical advertising

Created by Montreal agency CloudRaker, this campaign features four rappers who discuss the company's strengths in the form of music,

Given the huge popularity of the YouTube marketing campaign, Kijiji has come back by asking people to post the ads they want to see on the site. The 28 selected proposals were transformed into music by five rappers, to the delight of the public.

Combining music and advertising, this campaign tends to turn a commercial advertisement into an entertainment opportunity, which is undoubtedly its highest quality. In addition, it allows the company to interact directly with the audience and to involve them in their creative process.

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5) Instagram your fridge by Smirnoff

This campaign asked people to put a photo of the inside of their fridge on Instagram. Once the photo was online, a personalized cocktail recipe from the foods present in their fridge was offered to them in the form of a video.

The public response to this advertisement was more than positive: the videos of Internet users were shared no less than 200,000 times in just three weeks. In addition, Smirnoff followers on Instagram grew by 676% and the company's value by 20%. Awesome, isn’t it? That’s actually an understatement if we do say so!

The personalized aspect of this ad, as well as the enhancement of the versatile character of Smirnoff vodka in a context of interactivity with the public, make this campaign an undeniable success.

6) The Taco Bell blackout

To draw public attention to its new Mashable app, Taco Bell disappeared from social networks. More precisely, their presence was literally blacked out. The only sign of life was an advertisement indicating that Taco Bell is active through its new application.

Surprised and intrigued by this unorthodox way of doing things, the public turned in large numbers to the application, so much so that the popularity of the program surpassed that of Starbucks, which was at the top of the charts.

It is rather fascinating to see all the space that this chain of restaurants managed to take up by literally fading out and going directly against the current of an active presence on social media.

7) Heineken: World's Apart

In this advertisement, we see two individuals with opposing beliefs gathered together to discuss. During the meeting, the two individuals must answer a few questions to introduce themselves.

Subsequently, a video of each of the two people is created, during which they express their opinion on a particular subject. It should be noted that the two people were twinned together because of their diametrically opposed opinion on a specific topic.

Once everyone's opinion has been revealed to each other via the recorded videos, both individuals have the chance to stay to build a bar and have a beer together or leave.

Working together despite our differences, is it possible? Can we go beyond what divides us to find what brings us together? Combining an omnipresent social problem (intolerance to differences) with the socializing potential of beer, Heineken has produced a true masterstroke with this marketing campaign.

Not only does the brand succeed in showing sensitivity to a social issue, but it also tends to go beyond the usual enhancement of the taste of beer, an aspect generally promoted by other brands. They decided to change their approach and touch on one aspect of the beer that their competitors did not know how to exploit, namely the social context in which they fit.

8) IKEA and Place

Lorsque IKEA a lancé l’application Place l’année dernière, elle répondait à un besoin bien particulier de la part de nombreux acheteurs de meubles : savoir ce dont aurait l’air le nouveau venu chez soi. Difficile en effet de transposer un meuble vu dans un magasin dans son propre décor.

When IKEA launched the Place app last year, it met a particular need from many furniture buyers: what would the new piece look like at home? After all, it is indeed quite difficult to transpose a piece of furniture into its future setting.

To counter this unfortunate issue, the Place application uses augmented reality to its full potential. But what is augmented reality? The latter is, in fact, a form of parallel reality in which the user is transposed in real time in a 3D environment.

With this tool, potential buyers can place the coveted furniture in their own setting and make sure it does not clash with the rest before buying. In addition to allowing users to have fun, this app avoids making bad purchases. Fantastic, isn’t it?

9) Cyrillus and their Smartalog

We must give a special mention to Cyrillus, the French clothing brand that had the absolutely brilliant idea to offer each of its customers a Smartalog, which is a personalized catalogue based on browsing history and previous purchases.

The brand saves the customer time and maximizes chances of seeing them make future purchases. No wonder this marketing campaign managed to get its hands on the 2017 Innovation Award.

10) Unadev humanizes the concept of donation

Going against automation and mass mailings, the National Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired (Unadev) decided to personally thank its donors for its latest campaign of support. Gifts and a personalized word were given to each donor in person.

Although the campaign is not original in the true sense of the term, it does, however, show a remarkable respect for its audience and the high degree of personalization of their campaign is worth being taken as an example.

Lastly, it is important to underline that the humanization of the relationship between donors and the organization has reached a remarkable level, which is at odds with the usual quest for speed when brands or NGOs embark on this type of endeavour.