The 5 Best Easter Digital Marketing Campaigns

A look back at some of the best Easter marketing campaigns that rocked the world of digital.

Easter, whether you hold a religious faith or not, is generally a time for celebration and coming together; with friends, family and chocolate. (Always with chocolate.) And it’s no different in the digital marketing world.

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The idea of Easter is essentially a fresh start, a spring clean; to be reborn! – and this message is a strong one for brands to convey to their prospects, in the sense of ‘if you haven’t considered us yet, consider us now!’. It also presents a great opportunity for marketers to show their business’ lighter side – a side filled with egg treasure hunts and cute fluffy chicks. As we’re starting to see the development of immersion and H2H marketing, it’s apparent this is the side that customers want to see more of, so what better place to start than Easter?

The following campaigns are the best examples of Easter digital marketing that encompass brilliant integrations with social media activity, creativity, and that immersion we were talking about earlier…

Something to Tweet About – Asda (2014)

A continuation of its ‘beat not match’ promise to customers, Something to Tweet About was aimed to prove that Asda’s prices were, you guessed it, something to tweet about. Launched in April 2014, the TV advert saw 4, so-cute-that-i’m-going-to-have-a-heart-attack, fluffy chicks emerge from birdhouses coloured to represent one of the big 4 supermarkets and battle it out in a funky competition. The Asda chick was proven to be ‘10% funkier than the other chicks’, made perfectly clear as it got on down to 80s classic Funky Town. The advert itself got people talking, (and possibly screaming at the level of adorable on their screens) but more importantly it got people tweeting. They aligned the advert with a social media campaign whereby you & I could personalise our own chick and share it on Twitter using the hashtag #AsdaChick. Cute, sociable and interactive, Asda is really setting a digital egg-sample. Sorry not sorry.

Thanks a Million – Cadbury’s (2012)

Despite being a globally known chocolate brand, Cadbury’s felt the same low Facebook engagement rates as the rest of us, as the algorithm the social media platform uses means some communities only sees 8% of a brand’s content in their news feed. With the mission to up engagement and interactivity with their posts, Cadbury’s decided to fully integrate social media symbolism into their campaign, but still keep it smothered in Dairy Milk of course. The Thanks a Million videos sought to give thanks to their 1 million Facebook fans in the most logical way possible – to build a giant thumbs up ‘Like’ out of Cadbury’s chocolate. The 2 day online egg-stravaganza (again, really not sorry) allowed users to watch 3 live video streams of the construction, send messages to the workers and help build the thumbs up by ‘adding a block’ via the campaign Facebook app. This Easter fun resulted in a 35% increase in engagement on their fan page, 40,000 new likes and a total of 350,000 people involved.

#FindTheEggs – Tesco (2013)

A classic, but we couldn’t not include it. Many websites have endeavoured in digitising the traditional Easter egg hunt, but mega chain Tesco decided to blur the boundaries between online and offline, with a Google Maps based treasure hunt Find the Eggs. Users were invited to enter their postcode into the Find The Eggs microsite to access their street view where loads of virtual eggs were hidden. In true treasure hunt form, prizes of the chocolate bunny variety were offered to those who found 3 eggs, and a Samsung tablet offered to anybody who found the rare golden egg. With a clever use of mandatory social media interaction (you had to Like the Tesco fan page before engaging in the game), Tesco made an otherwise childlike activity appeal to all ages, and also appeal to the new digital age.

Easter Egg Vine Competition – Mashable (2014)

 

Colouring and decorating Easter eggs feels like a lifetime ago, a distant happy memory that is totally unrelatable now. But last year Mashable got us dusting off the Crayola crayons – you’d still have had some somewhere, trust me – and channeling our inner child in a social media competition that was looking for the best decorated Easter egg. Staying in the lines has never been so important. Participants were invited to create a Vine showing their cre-egg-tivity (too tenuous?) and share the beautiful results on social using #CraftyEggs – the most creative entries were featured in a Mashable follow up blog post. This campaign was completely consumer-centric, giving some food for thought for brands striving to find a tedious link between Easter and their business proposition.

Earster Cats – Whiskas (2011)

Going way back to 2011, cat lovers will surely remember the Earster Cats campaign, launched by Whiskas to get people celebrating and sharing the love for cats all around us. Well, only if you had an iPhone. The app, designed for maximum engagement, allowed users to take adorable snaps of their feline friends and edit the photo to include a pair of wacky bunny ears. Through the app you could share the photo with family and friends on social media and laugh adoringly at your moggy as they secretly plot to destroy you. (Sorry, I’m a dog person…)

Many of these campaigns used social media as an integral part of the marketing strategy. To ensure your business isn’t being socially awkward, get your hands on How to Generate Leads from Social Media and learn how to reach and engage your prospects across every platform.