The world has evolved from the traditional form of marketing to the digital marketing we see today. With social media at the forefront of socio-political, humanitarian and cultural environment to name a few, it is changing the way we see the world every second.

This leaves brands with a mine of opportunities to discover, shape and present for the end customer. Some clearly do it better than the others, but when they do, it leaves a lasting impact.

One key to a viral campaign is a message that is compelling and interesting enough for a viewer’s or participant’s desire to share it with a friend.

Here is a list of top 10 international campaigns that compelled consumers to stop swiping!

 

Coca-Cola: Friendly Twist

All across the globe the first day of college is where most of the shy students shuffle about looking for their classes. Nobody knows anybody, but everybody wants to make new friends and all they need is an icebreaker.

This brilliant campaign from Coca-Cola was designed for such students to make their first day memorable. The brand created smart caps that prevented the students from opening the bottle alone. The students needed to pair with another person in order to unlock the cap.

The campaign has generated:

Total View = 9M

Subscriptions = 5000+

Likes on FB = 160,000

 

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was a clear winner on the internet in 2014. Despite the “silliness” social media, it increased awareness for ALS, more commonly referred to as Lou Gerhig’s disease.

According to the New York Times in 2014 the ALS Association received $49M between July 29 and August 20, doubling the $19.4M the ALS Association received in all of 2013. By the end of the month the ALS Association announced that donations exceeded $100 M.

Videos Uploaded –  2.4 million

Page Views – 2.9M

 

Dove – Real Beauty Sketches

“Real Beauty Sketches” debuted on April 14, 2013. The ad not only impressed, but also tugged at heartstrings. In it, an FBI sketch artist asked individual women to describe themselves. He asked things like, “Tell me about your chin,” to which women depressingly replied that their self-described portraits are sadder and almost sour-looking in some instances. The campaign conveyed a message of self-esteem and self-confidence with a message “YOU are more beautiful than you think!”. It said love yourself and don’t be harsh, judgemental and too critical of yourself.

Total Views = 3.5M

 

Old Spice Man

Old Spice “Smell Like a Man, Man” was launched just prior to the 2010 Superbowl and quickly became a viral video sensation. This social campaign followed the hugely successful Super Bowl TV commercial of February 2010. Later on, were also very popular on YouTube. The brand discovered that women were responsible for more than 50% of bodywash purchases. The company thought an interactive digital campaign capitalising on the popularity of the “Old Spice Guy” in which he responded to personal video messages from his fans could be a game changer. The results of the campaign were outstanding.

Nearly 105 million YouTube views of the campaign

2700% increase in Twitter followers
800% increase in Facebook fan interaction
300% increase in traffic to http://oldspice.com
125% increase in sales

 

Nike: Just Do It

Designed with the idea to celebrate the joy of participating in sports and fitness activities, “Just do it” was one of the biggest ad ideas ever. Destined to cut across all conceivable psychological/socio/demographic lines for everyone, the ads contain everyone from pro sports athletes, fitness amateurs, young, old, men and women from around the world.

In 1988, Nike sales were $800 million. They introduced their iconic “Just Do It” campaign. Within a decade, sales topped $2 billion. “Just Do It” is a core message that still works today after 30 years.

 

Airbnb – “We are here”

To celebrate the launch of Experiences, Airbnb invited people around the world to participate in a series of videos via a one-day Facebook Live feed named “We Are Here” that show people using Airbnb’s new “Places” and “Experiences” options.  Through this campaign the brand tells an amazing story by utilizing Facebook Live. Users can get the feeling of being at exotic locations throughout the world. Airbnb does a great job of connecting their brand with users while giving them an amazing experience. Airbnb garnered over 6.2 million views of the 6 live streams around the world, with Miami, Paris and Tokyo being the top viewed. Miami alone had over 2M views.

 

IKEA Facebook Showroom

It is rightly said some of the best campaign strategies are simple, clever & should be able to connect to people. Back in 2009 Ikea set the social-media world ablaze with a breakthrough campaign for a new store in Malmo, Sweden. A Facebook profile was created for their store manager, Gordon Gustavsson, and for two weeks, Ikea uploaded images to his Facebook photo album from IKEA showrooms. Then they spread the word that the first person to tag their name to a product won that item. As the result thousands and thousands of people were flooding the Facebook page in search of pictures!

 

Blendtec:  Will It Blend Campaign

To demonstrate the power of Blendtec blenders, founder Tom Dickson attempted to blend some of the most random objects around which immediately draws your attention. Dickson started the marketing campaign after an attempt to use a blender for a box of matches. The initial objective for the “Will It Blend” videos was to increase brand awareness for their line of blenders. The brand believed great products + weak branding = weak sales

186 videos later, combined YouTube views are 256 M
Retail sales are up by 700 percent
YouTube site has 200,000+ subscribers

 

P&G: Thank You Mom

It all started when Procter & Gamble sponsored Team USA during the 2010 Winter Olympics. P&G focused on athlete moms (the real value for them) instead of focusing on male athletes. The goal behind this campaign was to sponsor athlete moms and helped 250 women across America to go see their children compete in Vancouver for the Olympic games. The campaign received an overwhelming response and resulted in $100 million in incremental sales and a 39% increase in brand recall. After the success of “Proud Sponsor of Moms”, the P&G marketing team realised the idea was a lot bigger and couldn’t be just for a single event. When P&G received 10 years of Olympic sponsorship, they start promoting their best campaign with a remoulded version of “Thank You Mom” and the campaign went global. Their campaign managed to increase $200 million in incremental sales and Unruly Media reported that an extension of the P&G campaign titled ‘Best Job’ was the seventh most shared campaign of all time (as of 2014).

 

Tasty – From BuzzFeed

We all went through a phase when we started following BuzzFeed on Facebook for the Tasty recipes. We all are big fans of all the Tasty videos.

By using just two smart and clever ingredients, i.e., people’s inclination towards food and Facebook’s algorithms to prioritize videos, in a short span of time Buzzfeed had the perfect recipe and Tasty became one of the most loved handles. As a result, Tasty had 161 million views and 4.4 million shares of the top posts. BuzzFeed gained 1.2 million likes with its Tasty campaigns. This is one of the best social media campaigns of all time.

 

The bottom line is that a successful social media campaign requires creativity, a clear message and needs to make a splash at the right time. And with an overload of information and too many factors to attract a consumer’s attention, if you hit the nail on the head, you are a success story!

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