We Love: 8 Digital Marketing Campaigns of 2014

It’s that time of year again where love is in the air, so here’s our favourite digital marketing campaigns of 2014 that we just couldn’t help but love.

2014 was a successful year for many reasons; another Prince was conceived, Ellen deGeneres took the selfie game to a whole new level of awesome and Germany won the World Cup! Oh wait – no.

But one thing that did kick 2014’s ass was digital marketing and the array of innovative and engaging campaigns that it gave us on our TV screens and Twitter feeds alike. So let’s show them some love this Valentine’s day. Bravo!

 

#LidlSurprises – Lidl

It comes as no surprise that #LidlSurprises surprised us, what, with its wit and postmodernist self awareness. The £20m tongue-in-cheek campaign came as part of a £220m expansion of the Lidl chain, which needed to shift the public perception of the brand from ‘cheap’ to ‘value’. Their money was well spent. What we particularly loved about the series of TV advertisements and social media engagement was that it created a platform for people to share positivity and be rewarded – Lidl even took the campaign offline, printing and displaying customer tweets in the stores. An all round winner winner, Lidl chicken dinner.

 

All Things Hair – Unilever

Working closely with influential online bloggers, Unilever’s first multiple product promotion in a single campaign really hit the nail on the head, or hair. By using Google data to determine what people were searching for in the way of hairstyles, Unilever cleverly paid successful beauty vloggers to create those desired hair tutorials using products such as Toni & Guy, Dove and Vo5. We salute Unilever for catching onto the video tutorial consumption increase, but more importantly, the use and practice of big, BIG, data. All Things Hair is a real testimony to what big data can be used for – and shiny locks was a good place to start!

 

#Hibernot – Landrover

As much as most of us normally eagerly anticipate the warmth and comfort of a winter hibernation, Landrover were having none of it in 2014! #Hibernot was an aesthetically pleasing, slick campaign that seeked to find us all a wonderful winter adventure. Using the phrase, ‘we spent our summer planning your winter’, the Hibernot microsite curated customer adventures and provided a platform for people to find great UK destinations to travel to – all whilst indicating the Landrover Discovery Sport is the vehicle to do so in, of course! The real time site provides visually stunning landscapes and a tonne of winter inspiration, and a Snow Day on January 10th took their marketing offline…but not in the way you think!

 

#UpForWhatever – Bud Light

So #UpForWhatever really took customer experience to some new heights – the quaint ski town Crested Brutte, Colorado, to be precise. Dubbed Whatever, USA, Bud Light in partnership with Anheuser-Busch turned this town into what became the party of the century, let alone 2014! Inviting celebrities and one million millennials – yes you heard correctly – to spend a weekend endeavouring in all kinds of Bud Light induced shenanigans, this campaign sought to break boundaries of the normal marketing methodologies; where an action is triggered by a desire which is triggered by an interest which is triggered by awareness. Blergh! #UpForWhatever incorporated experience, intrigue, energy and collaboration to bring together an entire generation. We loved this, but where was our invite?

 

Become a Kingsman – 20th Century Fox & Google

When a marketing campaign adopts gamification as its core engagement, we’re interested. When that game allows us to be a Kingsman Knight, we’re in love. 20th Century Fox teamed up with Google to allow for an immersion so real, we almost changed our Facebook names to oo7. Almost. Using Google street view, Google maps, Google Chrome and Youtube, Become a Kingsman allowed users to fully enter and control actions scenes from the movie and fight as Colin Firth’s character. With a strong narrative (it’s the movie, durr) and interaction on a Google scale (monumental), this promotional campaign, compatible on computers and smart phones, really took movie trailers to the next level.

 

Rendezvous – Jaguar

Taking British finery to America, Jaguar’s marketing campaign defined the word smooth. And suave. And sophistication. Featuring an all star cast comprised of Sir Ben Kingsley, Tom Hiddleston and Mark Strong, Jaguar’s ‘Rendezvous’ Super Bowl advertisement was more of a cinematic experience than a product promotion, emulating scenes more often associated with a sexy James Bond film. Since the campaign’s airing during the Super Bowl, Jaguar North America announced record levels of customer engagement, through brand mentions, social media traffic and responses to the campaign hashtag #GoodToBeBad. Most car manufacturers rely on their TV advertising to bring in sales, but Jaguar ensured to reflect the cinematic experiences of Rendezvous offline, with printed assets, outdoor creative in New York and special events in lead up to the Super Bowl. Only something British could have performed this well. And yes we’re totally biased.

 

#SecretSantaSacrifice – We Are Social

Nice idea! http://t.co/o2mh2ERqjp

— Danny Wallace (@dannywallace) December 13, 2014

Instead of spending money on crappy secret santa gifts, We Are Social asked people to donate £5 to Age UK, which helps approximately 1.7 million elderly people in the UK who are unable to keep themselves warm during the harsh winter months. Christmas is ultimately the time of giving, and We Are Social gave. The agency asked employers, friends, family and the general public to select a virtual piece of Christmas tat and donate the price to Age UK, with a cute #SecretSantaSacrifice social media image to share on Twitter, Facebook or via Email. The simplicity of this idea was ingenious, received a tonne of press coverage due to its selfless nature and will hopefully encourage more charitable Christmas campaigns in 2015.  

 

Dreaming with Jeff – Squarespace

Even just 30 seconds on the Dreaming with Jeff microsite will make you calm, relaxed and stress free – and even wanting to buy the secondary and primary product. Although marketing campaigns often inject intensity and action into their visual communications and messages to invoke energy, Squarespace set out to do the opposite – send us to sleep. But this doesn’t mean that we were bored, by any means. The campaign’s purpose was to raise money for No kid Hungry through the ‘pay-what-you-want’ sales of Jeff Bridges’ sleeping tapes, but also promote the beauty of creativity,with Squarespace founder and CEO exclaiming “we wanted to create a campaign to illustrate that any idea, no matter how wild or weird, can be presented beautifully and meaningfully through Squarespace.” We loved that Squarespace did the exactly opposite of what we’d normally expect – and we also love a restless sleep. Goodnight folks.

But before we do go and take a quiet nap in the corner – thanks Jeff – here’s our guide ‘Listening In: How to Use Social Tools to Create Content Which Converts’, to ensure that when you are building out your promotional strategy and messaging for your next campaign, you’re getting it right!