ON TINY BUDGETS
ON TINY BUDGETS
100 CREATIVE IDEAS
100 CREATIVE IDEAS
INTRO
A small budget should not stop you from creating great work.
Here’s 100 examples of great ideas that were executed on tiny budgets (est. under $20,000 USD)
Enjoy,
JC
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CREATED BY
QUICK SERVICE
QUICK SERVICE
#MAKEMYSANDWICH
Using only Arby's sandwich ingredients — and responding within hours of brand fans' requests, Arby’s created more than 100 hyper-personalized, handcrafted pieces of sandwich art for social.
In less than three weeks, the campaign generated over 28 million impressions on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with a 99% positive sentiment rating.
ARBY’S
BIG MACish
Thanks to a brief European trademark ruling depriving McDonald’s of the Big Mac trademark across the EU, Burger King could advertise the “Wished It Was” burger — and lots more besides — with no legal repercussions.
In a spoof ad, Burger King Sweden showed a restaurant menu offering the burger alongside a selection including “Like a Big Mac, But Actually Big”, “Kind of Like a Big Mac But Juicier and Tastier”, and “Big Mac-ish But Flame-Grilled of Course.”
Burger King
BURRITO TIME
Dos Toros created a daily push notification. The first 10 people to open the app win a free burrito, guac included.
DOS TOROS
TACO EMOJI ENGINE
Taco Bell started a change.org campaign and successfully petitioned for the addition of a taco emoji to the standard smartphone emoji keyboard.
If users tweeted the taco emoji plus any of the other 1,295 emojis in the standard emoji keyboard, they would receive custom responses from Taco Bell.
The campaign drove more brand mentions than any other day in Taco Bell’s Twitter history and received 22 billion total potential impressions.
TACO BELL
TWITTER RAP BATTLE
When @FatLaz901 called out Wendy's to respond to one of Wingstop's rap-inspired tweets, all twitter-hell broke loose.
The two brands went back-and-forth bar-for-bar all night, until a truce was finally called. But not before garnering 207.8 million impressions, and making real waves in pop culture.
This mastery of brand voice paired real cultural insight and quick thinking to result in 4.3 million engagements without a dime of paid media spent.
WINGSTOP
TURNING THEIR TWEETS AGAINST THEM
In 2017, Wendy's discontinued their beloved spicy chicken nuggets and people were not happy. Wendy's has a reputation for being the ultimate Twitter troll, so Burger King decided to wage a shadow war against them on the very platform they're known for being the best at.
To do so, Burger King simply turned Twitter users' disgruntled spicy nugget tweets, directed at Wendy's, into promoted ads from Burger King.
The campaign resulted in over 1.5 billion media impressions and sold out three months of inventory in four weeks.
BURGER KING
THE OTHER SANDERS
On International Women’s Day, KFC Malaysia replaced the Colonel’s logo with someone the world knew little about. His wife - Claudia Sanders.
They celebrated her roll in the success of KFC through social and digital platforms. Claudia’s story allowed a conservative country to celebrate our fairer, better, stronger selves.
The campaign generated over 1.3 billion media impressions and an earned media value of more than $2 million.
KFC MALAYSIA
MCWHOPPER
Starting with a full page letter, Burger King invited McDonalds to join them in one location, on World Peace Day to cook up McWhoppers with proceeds going to Peace One Day.
Despite McDonalds not participating, the campaign generated 8.9 billion media impressions, $220 million in earned media and won a One Show Silver and Axis Gold.
BURGER KING
WEDDING REGISTRY
Out of sheer love for pizza, countless people in the US make Domino's a part of their wedding, whether it's used during the proposal, served at the reception, or ordered after the couple returns home exhausted from their honeymoon.
After watching this happen for years, Domino’s embraced this trend and launched the Domino's Wedding Registry – the first-ever registry where engaged couples can ask for cheesy pizza as wedding gifts.
The campaign received national coverage, garnering 1 billion media impressions in the first 7 days with the platform receiving more than 400,000 page views from +165 countries to date.
DOMINO’S
LEAF RAKERS SOCIETY
Fall isn't just a mindset, it's a mood. And, for many, it's filled with excitement that's often criticized. They expressed a desire to indulge in Fall without judgment, so we created the Leaf Rakers Society, a private Facebook group, just for them.
In the Leaf Rakers Society, PSL fans celebrate the season they love within the context of a creative environment topped with moments of joy.
Starbucks organically grew the group to nearly 28,000 members, all without any paid media support. Group members created over 25,000 posts, left 340,000 comments and 1.9M reactions.
STARBUCKS
FESTIVALS
FESTIVALS
AIRDROPPED GIVEAWAY
AirDrop is good for something other than unsolicited pics after all! Random attendees at Coachella were surprised with an AirDrop request to accept a photo from an account claiming to be Donald Glover (Childish Gambino).
Those who accepted were treated to new shoes created in collaboration by Donald Glover & Adidas. Fans who accepted only had 60 minutes to pick up the free shoes from nearby locations.
ADIDAS
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
LINEUP ANNOUNCEMENT
MEGATHON
Announcing lineups for a festival is one of the biggest steps in building traction toward success and ticket sales. Bonnaroo, one of the biggest music festivals in the United States, took an unconventional approach toward announcing their 2015 festival lineup.
The festival prompted fans to dial into a special phone number to find out the artists playing that year in a campaign called ‘YOU Announce the Lineup’. Each caller is given 1 artist on the lineup and is then encouraged to share that info via social media using the #bonnaroo hashtag.
BONNAROO
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
SPEAKEASY PORTA-POTTY
Typically, portable restrooms at any festival are unforgivably disgraceful. The team over at Sziget Festival in Budapest took this as an opportunity to create a transformative passageway into an electronic Narnia.
Sziget attracts an international audience, is praised for its ingenuity and is routinely voted as one of the best festivals in Europe.
The unexpected root through a porta-potty gave access to a secret area, not listed in the program. Granting access to a ‘VIP’ area only through word of mouth or sheer luck created a lot of post-event buzz and left those who missed out forever baffled.
SZIGET FESTIVAL
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
SHADOW MESSAGES
At MINI UNITED Festival, more than 20,000 music and MINI enthusiasts gathered to see the fastest MINI cars in the world and world-famous music acts. Past years included Iggy Pop, Gossip and The Ting Tings.
Munich based agency future:headz spread publicity for the MINI UNITED Festival in one of Europe’s most dangerous cities using an unusual take on sidewalk messaging.
Shadow messages paved the streets by night with stencils beneath streetlights. During the day the sun projected the same shadow messages, leaving MINI UNITED on pedestrians’ minds day-to-night.
MINI UNITED
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
DRACULA DISCOUNT
The Untold festival takes place in Cluj-Napoca, the largest city in the northern part of Romania—known as Transylvania, where Bram Stoker’s classic vampire novel Dracula is set.
Untold’s organizers offered free one-day passes to people who donated blood in Bucharest and in Cluj-Napoca
The “pay with blood” promotion was primarily intended to help alleviate the blood shortage in medical centers across Romania. The team was interested in finding a way to incorporate Dracula into the festival and after seeing the numbers and need, this idea had a real and transparent social-impact on its community.
UNTOLD FESTIVAL
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
BOTTLES BECOME WRISTBANDS
Coca-Cola created a detachable bottle label that doubles up as a festival wristband. This is a new way that Coca-Cola is exploring packaging stunts (think: Share-a-Coke campaign).
The brand partnered with several large music festivals in Romania as part of the campaign’s push, including Transylvania’s Untold Festival, which was named Best Major European Festival at the European Festival Awards in 2016.
COCA-COLA
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
MEDICINAL AD LINEUP REVEAL
Austin City Limits festival organizers revealed a portion of the lineup for 2018 with a clever ‘ad’.
“The spot peddled a drug called Acielle (zilkerus festum) aimed at patients “struggling with a lack of musical exposure.” Mixed in with a list of outcomes like “permagrin” and “liquid courage” were artists from this year’s roster.”
AUSTIN CITY LIMITS
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
MUSIC
MUSIC
REFLEKTOR
In anticipation of their new album Reflektor, Arcade Fire hired graffiti artists to build buzz for the album with a coordinated appearance around the world of a cryptic symbol that started getting traction on social media.
The same symbol was printed on fans handed out to festival goers at both FYF and Lollapalooza, and it did not take much for people to discover thereflektors.com, a website featuring a fuzzy video of someone drawing the logo in chalk.
The band's only official statements, at a later date, were the release date – announced in a tweet and a giant flag with the mysterious symbol and the "Reflektor" single's release date and time, "9/9/9."
ARCADE FIRE
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
ONCE UPON A TIME IN SHAOLIN
In March of 2014, the band announced that they would release a double-album as piece of art.
It was a single-sale collector’s item, held in a silver jewel-encrusted box with a wax Wu-Tang Clan seal and leather-bound liner notes, an item not to be made available digitally. For a limited period of time it could only be heard at festivals, museums and art galleries before it was sold to the highest bidder.
The album was auctioned in 2015 through Paddle8, which had previously sold works by Jeff Koons & Damien Hirst, and a legal agreement stipulated that it couldn’t be commercially exploited until 2103, although it could be released free or played at listening parties.
WU-TANG CLAN
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
FREEDOM AT 21
It was a stunt described as “an experiment exploring nontraditional forms of record distribution and a way to get records in the hands of people who don't visit record shops.”
White and colleagues at Third Man filled 1,000 blue balloons made of biodegradable latex with helium, attached flexi-discs and released them into the sky for people to find.
Accompanying the balloons were custom postcards with instructions for the finders to submit photos or indicate when and where the record was found. All of this was incorporated into a website where fans could access the information.
JACK WHITE
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
AVICII BEGINS
To promote Avicii’s album “Stories” and to showcase the wide variety of songs on the record, ranging all the way from hip-hop to techno, the marketing team behind the artist created a click-through interactive story on Instagram.
The different styles of songs were matched to specific choices that could be made during the story and they were played as the soundtrack in the cinematic video endings, so every time fans replayed, they could get a different ending with a new song from the album.
The campaign connected 23 Instagram accounts and included other famous brands and artists “cameos”.
AVICII
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
JOIN A CULT
Centralising the theme around a fake
cult, posters were displayed across the
globe pointing the public towards
a website urging them to “Join a Cult” called
MANTRA and a hotline that led to an answering machine which played unsettling voice messages and teased snippets from the band’s
upcoming single (each time it was called, different teasers played)
The campaign featured 10 different voice over actors, 45 minutes’ worth of audio messages, 12 different phone lines in 10 countries and 4 websites. This, combined with actors pretending to be part of the cult before the band’s performances successfully brought the cult-theme of the lead single into the real world.
BRING ME THE HORIZON
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
SAVE DAT MONEY
In a star-studded music video turned viral, 27-year-old rapper and former ad agency staffer (he used to work at Goodby Silverstein) Lil Dicky tried to make the "best rap video ever" with a very minimal initial investment, whereas most rap music videos cost tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce.
“$ave Dat Money” concept is simple: engage high-end retailers and wealthy people, ask them to borrow stuff for a shoot, and make a Roman orgy rap clip for free.
As the title suggests, he didn't spend a dime, in fact, he earned $600 because of the product placement he exchanged everything for.
LIL’ DICKY
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
DRINKS
DRINKS
ALEXA SAYS WHASSUP
Nearly 20 years ago, Budweiser introduced one of its most memorable (and absurd) campaigns, “Whassup,” to the nation. Now, the company is reviving the iconic piece of marketing, but this time, there’s another man—er, brand spokesman—the Burger King himself, shouting “Whassup?”
BUDWEISER X BURGER KING
SHARE FOR GOOD
Hearing about a company trying to game the Facebook algorithm usually brings to mind spam and clickbait, but what if the goal was to protect the reputation of an entire nationality of people?
The marketing team at Mexican beer company, Estrella Jalisco, did just that with its “Share for Good” initiative that helped turn around the results generated by Facebook’s search function when users typed, “Mexicans are.”
ESTRELLA JALISCO
HEINEKEN DOORMAN
As part of its Formula 1 ‘More Than A Race’ campaign Heineken developed a chatbot to open up the lifestyle of Formula 1 to fans in Australia.
The Heineken Chatbot gave quick-witted consumers a chance to prove their chat was worthy of winning a VIP Heineken Saturday experience at the Formula 1.
Running across varying stages, users were introduced to the Heineken Saturday Doorman, The Stylist and Formula 1 legend David Coulthard. Consumers then had to talk their way past the doorman to win prizes.
The campaign was a huge success: what beer drinker doesn’t think they’ve got great banter?
HEINEKEN
#TUNNELNOTTONNELEL
When Corey launched his petition, Budweiser came to his defense. Tweeting a photo of the conic Newark Budweiser brewery sign adorned with the same failed decorations as the Holland Tunnel, they included a pledge saying these decorations wouldn't change until the Holland Tunnel decorations changed too.
Within hours, the tweet went viral as consumers, brands, and traditional media alike, started to join in, often incorporating the brand hashtags, #MoveThatTree and #TunnelNotTonnel.
Other brands in the area Burlington Coat Factory, Unilever, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, also joined in.
BUDWEISER
DRY FLY ZONE
In January when many people make New Year’s resolutions to try and cut down on their drinking, three brands listened.
Virgin Atlantic Airlines partnered with spirits brand Seedlip and vermouth maker Regal Rogue to create a special drink menu for its passengers participating in Dry January.
In an environment where drinking is often seen as a key way to relax, consumers were given another alternative.
SEEDLIP AND REGAL ROUGE
BACARDI’S LIVE MOVES
The launch of ITV saw Bacardi team up with DJ A-Trak and Les Twins inviting fans to help direct their latest music video in real time.
Fans following @LesTwins using Instagram polls could vote on different parts of the music video including location, lighting, camera angles and choreography, unlocking 1024 different possibilities.
The fan selections were then used to create a full length music video for ITV.
BACARDI
New Amsterdam Vodka has tapped into the podcast space in collaboration with Spotify.
As part of its Pour Out Your Soul campaign, New Amsterdam Vodka announced its first branded podcast, The Ebb & Flow. Hosted by brand ambassador Jasmine Solano the podcast centres on conversations with popular hip-hop artists.
The end of each podcast features drink recipes that can be made with New Amsterdam Vodka.
NEW AMSTERDAM VODKA
CONTENT FOR COCKTAILS
#YAYDELAY
A train delay traditionally was something to moan about, but thanks to Gordon’s Gin it became something to celebrate.
Gordon's matched real-time train delay data with phone-based geolocation, social sentiment analysis and rail operator search terms to target commuters stuck on specific station platforms with a Gordon's offer.
The clever use of data meant that Gordon’s could tap into a precise emotional state with heightened dwell time encouraging trial. Plus, they knew train delays were something people naturally spoke about so hijacking this conversation and putting a positive Gordon’s spin on it was a clear winner.
GORDON’S GIN
NEVER GONNA GIF YOU UP
This is the story of how the brand got 780 million organic views using wit, stop motion and a lot of vodka.
Giphy, the world’s largest GIF platform, serves 2 billion GIFs to users on a daily basis. (Tinder even reports that users who start conversations using GIFs have a 30% higher reply rate than those who don’t.) The way these GIFs are used poses an exciting opportunity for brands, as they’re shared as a form of self-expression from one person to another.
If a brand could create GIFs relevant enough for a certain audience, they could effectively inject the brand into their target audiences’ online conversations without having to rely on intrusive ads.
ABSOLUT VODKA
SNAPSKATE
SnapSkate is the first Snapchat Story turned into a game (with no coding or media investment at all.)A Snapchat Story is normally just a couple of short videos, one after the other.
The trick here: a couple of short videos, in which a skater has to jump over obstacles – but fails every time. Only if you tap right before he fails, you skip to the next video with the skater jumping over the obstacle.
In the three days the game was online, 240,000 teens played it. They created 7.5 million views resulting in 8,000 hours spent with the brand in total. 76% played it all the way to the end.
COCA-COLA
RIG UP
Mountain Dew is the unofficial fuel of gamers everywhere. To solidify Mountain Dew's positioning in the gaming world they created a campaign optimized for an audience on Twitch, called Rig Up.
To achieve this, Mountain Dew developed a custom bot, DEWbot — the first ever branded chatbot on Twitch. The bot helped give fans the chance to score unprecedented prizing, engage with the bot, provide consumer data and ultimately help co-create a custom Origin Gaming Rig.
The campaign attracted 190K unique in-stream viewers on Twitch and a 265% increase in Mtn Dew Twitch fans.
MOUNTAIN DEW
PACKAGED GOODS
PACKAGED GOODS
UNBREAKABLE RAINBOW
Ben & Jerry's, the ice cream brand owned by Unilever, rebuilt an "unbreakable" rainbow in Warsaw, Poland for LGBT rights.
The rainbow, a water-light hologram, was the same size of the original 2012 floral installation which was torn down seven times by nationalists and opponents of LGBT rights, and so removed in 2015.
BEN & JERRY’S
THERESA MAY
Theresa May famously choked at the Conservative Party Congress. A quick bit of post-production by Carvonia cough mixture turned Theresa May’s political embarrassment into a viral video.
CARVONIA
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
MASK BEAUTY
In Japan when you are feeling unwell, surgical masks are used to avoid spreading germs. Tamagawa Mamoru, a beauty mask company, challenged its social media fans to send in pictures of themselves wearing masks. The company then had a manga artist draw their impression of what the customer would look like unmasked.
TAMAGAWA MAMORU
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
#DAYOFDOZENS
For its #dayofthedozens program, the doughnut chain and agency Baldwin& rigged a glazing machine to diffuse streams of sugary white goo in a distinct pattern against a black backdrop—forming a barcode image—before coating the fried treats on the conveyor belt below. On Dec. 12, 2015, consumers could use this YouTube video as a scannable coupon for a second dozen donuts free when they purchase a first dozen at Krispy Kreme.
KRISPY KREME
SWITCHING UP
Lush are equally famous for their colourful bath bombs, beauty products and corporate activism.
They have successfully championed a number of causes over the years. They are firmly against animal testing and campaigned to get EU law changed. They are also traditional beauty advertising tropes.
Lush have managed build a social following with UGC content from their community. On April 9, 2019 Lush tapped into the wider concern and debate about social channels by announcing a plan to close down their own.
LUSH
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
TEABAGGING
UK discount retailer Poundland is known for using social media to promote special offers on FMCG products and highlight the brands it works with. For less than £50 is produced the viral ‘teabagging’ tweet inhouse in the run up to Christmas to promote Twinings tea bags.
The tweet used Poundland’s ‘Naughty Elf’ character (similar to Elf on a Shelf) to promote Twinings tea bags. Chaos and priceless PR ensued. Considered off-colour by the media, social media listening showed that Poundland’s consumers loved their bawdy humour.
POUNDLAND
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
FCK WE’RE SORRY
A deft bit of graphic design turned KFC’s issues management into a viral marketing frenzy. The company had to temporarily close some UK stores because it had run out of chicken.
A real heartfelt apology was required in their print ads.
KFC UK
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
SPREADABLE TEA
Consumer brands in the UK are in the habit of getting in the spirit of April Fool’s Day. For 2019 Yorkshire Tea announced spreadable tea to go with your breakfast toast.
YORKSHIRE TEA
KARAOKE RECIPES
For the Philippine market, Spam along with BBDO Guerrero combined recipes with karaoke recipes. The songs feature cupboard staple ingredients and are composed in the style of popular karaoke genres including slow ballads and ‘diva’ anthems.
SPAM
PETCARE
PETCARE
In a clever OOH campaign petcare brand Puppo pulled publically available data from the NYC dog licensing data library and created an algorithm that built a personalised and unique ad for every registered dog in NYC.
The ads generated had unique diets recommended for each dog.
More than 100K worth of unique pooch posters were generated, giving every dog it's day.
PUPPO
PERSONALISATION FOR NYC POOCHES
Pedigree adopts Facebook’s masks feature to help shelter dogs find homes in this mobile campaign as part of the Mars-owned pet-food brand’s “Feed the Good” initiative.
Developed by BBDO New York, the “Adoptable Mask” push supports National Adopt a Shelter Dog Month and boasts pooch-face camera-effect overlays for users to fetch and share.
PEDIGREE
THE PEDIGREE ADOPTABLE MASK
Looking to adopt a dog in the New York City area? Sign up for Tinder! No seriously, you can adopt dogs on Tinder now.
SocialTees, a Manhattan-based animal rescue organization recently joined forces with ad agency BBH NY - The Barn to create Puppy Love, a program that will literally pair you up with a dog via the dating app.
Multi-tasking dog lovers, unite!
SOCIAL TEES
PUPPY LOVE �ON TINDER
The fear of losing your dog is universal to all dog owners, but smartphones may now hold the key to finding lost dogs – by outrunning them with digital ads. Pedigree, with the help of Google, want to make lost dogs a thing of the past with their new New Zealand-developed project – ‘Found’.
If a dog goes missing, every second counts. Pedigree have created an app that allows dog owners to pre-register their dog. If a dog is lost, the owner can use the app to send out a real time, geo-targeted message to people in the vicinity.
PEDIGREE
PEDIGREE FOUND
Petbarn's new campaign is all about the special relationship between pets and their owners.
The spot introduces a new brand positioning 'Putting more care in pet care' and seeks to highlight the brand's focus on care, rather than price, as it's previously done.
The TVC features a series of clips shot by families themselves with their pets, including playing with their cats, feeding their chickens and being woken up by their dogs.
PETBARN
PUTTING MORE �IN PET CARE
With the help of some professional quality photos, an adorable marketing strategy and social media, the Humane Society of Utah is making sure every dog has its day.
Instead of taking the usual mournful pictures of dogs in their pens, social-media coordinator Guinnevere Shuster, who took the photos, thought about how to make the animals more appealing to potential adopters.
THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF UTAH
PET PHOTO BOOTH
IKEA, DDB and Home for Hope teamed up with animal shelters based out of Singapore to promote animal adoptions. Cardboard cut-outs of 26 different dogs were created and set up in the showrooms of two different Ikea locations.
Customers looking for a new bedroom set, for example, see the perfect pet sitting on the end of the bed and realize thats what their home is actually missing. Each dog cut out has a QR code that, when scanned, brought the potential puppy parent to the dog’s adoption information, making it easy for these adoptable dogs to find homes.
IKEA / HOME FOR HOPE
HOME FOR HOPE
This short film reminded humans that, like them, cats only live once. Driving them, beat-after-beat, to adopt cats from one of the nationwide Best Friends shelters.
Utilizing music, the rap combined some of social media's favorite pastimes–cats and hip-hop. So the more people heard The Cat Rap, the more they knew that the story of cats having nine lives is a load of crap.
Because C-O-L-O– Cats Only Live Once.
BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY
THE CAT RAP
At the office, whenever you're at a meeting or having some coffee — that is, when you're away from the computer — the screen saver will come on. The same thing also takes place very frequently with computers located at shops, cyber cafés and other public venues. Pedigree, through Almap BBDO, decided to use screensavers as media and turn them into a virtual pet adoption fair.
The screensaver is available for all platforms and displays videos of dogs that are up for adoption.
PEDIGREE
SCREEN & DOG SAVER
Pet care brand Pedigree and its partner charity Ampara Animal needed to drive foot traffic to animal shelters as part of the Pedigree Adoption Drive. The brand partnered with shopping-centre electronics stores to create the Dog Channel, where the generic content displayed on the TV screens in-store was replaced with videos of dogs waiting to be adopted from a nearby shelter. Alongside the footage was a message to customers that included the dogs’ names and encouraged people to visit the shelter. When the dogs on the screens found new homes, the display changed to indicate a successful adoption.
PEDIGREE
DOG CHANNEL
A study from the University of Glasgow has confirmed what many had already suspected: each dog has their own individual taste in music. Together with the animal shelter Tierschutzverein München e.V., Serviceplan Campaign X has developed the idea of bringing dogs and owners together based on their musical tastes. They were able to secure a media partner who arguably knows people’s tastes in music better than anyone: Spotify. The result was “Adoptify”.
PEDIGREE
ADOPTIFY
HEALTHCARE
HEALTHCARE
PURE IMAGINATION
In a video PSA distributed online, Alzheimer’s victim Gene Wilder sings "Pure Imagination" as the candy-filled world of Wonka's imagination disappears slowly piece by piece, then exponentially faster until there is nothing left, drawing a poignant parallel to the effects of Alzheimer's disease.
The Pure Imagination Project garnered 2 million video views and 786.4 million media impressions worth $27.5 million in earned media.
ALZHEIMER’S ASSOCIATION
22 VICTORIES OF BREASTFEEDING
Breast pump manufacturer Medela partnered with two moms to document the “unfiltered, real struggles” of the first three weeks of breastfeeding, through Instagram Stories.
Using their existing content on the topic, Medela created an illustrated series of tips on their social platforms that addressed the struggles their two moms faced each day.
The campaign received 216 media placements — totaling over 90 million media impressions and a engagement rate of 23% (2x higher than the industry average).
MEDELA
GIVE YOUR POOP
A VOICE
How do you get people to “loosen up” about constipation and alternative treatment options? With a “language of poop” emoji keyboard app of course.
Within two weeks of launch, Synergy’s app was downloaded over 92k times and was the eighth-most downloaded health app on the Apple Store during its first week of launch.
The app was also featured on Newsweek, Wall Street Journal and Mashable, earning more than 310 million impressions.
SYNERGY PHARMACEUTICALS
#ENAMELBOT
To start a conversation about enamel erosion, toothpaste brand Pronamel created a Twitter bot that educated users about acidity levels in their favorite foods and drinks in real time.
When users tweeted the Enamelbot an emoji of the food or drink they were about to consume, they would receive a reply about its acidity.
The campaign attracted 15 million video views, 374k engagements, and 42.4 million impressions in total.
PRONAMEL
80ML
Using illustrations, 80ml developed a self-test where women answered questions about their period to find out whether they were in the risk zone for uterine fibroids, which affects 40% of all women in their lifetime.
The campaign reached 1 million Swedish women, 30-55 years old on Facebook and Instagram (100% of target group) and won a Shorty Award.
GEDEON RICHTER
IMMUNITY CHARM
In Afghanistan, the infant mortality rate is the worst in the world, with a vaccination rate of less than 50%.
To counter their vaccination issue, they turned to the “Immunity Charm” which comprises of colored beads, with each bead being a code for a specific vaccine. With every immunisation, doctors add the corresponding bead to the bracelet.
The campaign won the most awards ever at Lions Health—four gold Lions, four silvers and one bronze.
MINISTRY OF PUBLIC HEALTH, AFGHANISTAN
LULLACRY
Instead of asking users to donate money, premature birth charity March of Dimes asked parents to “donate a cry.”
To celebrate the first sign of life for babies - the cry - they incorporated crowd-sourced baby cries to create a remix of Brahm’s Lullaby.
The campaign received over 112 million impressions through influencers and earned media as well as winning a Shorty Award.
MARCH OF DIMES
UNSICK DAY
In today's workplace, employees rarely leave their desks for lunch, let alone to visit the doctor. This is especially true when it comes to preventive care.
To address this pervasive cultural conflict, Zocdoc, in partnership with 11 progressive companies, introduced Unsick Day: a day off to visit the doctor when you aren't sick.
In the first weeks of launch, Unsick Day garnered more than 70 million earned and social media impressions with Entrepreneur deeming it one of the best ideas of 2016.
ZOCDOC
CHECK IT BEFORE
IT’S REMOVED
In order to urge young women to start checking their breasts regularly, Pink Ribbon Germany decided to launch an awareness campaign on Facebook and Instagram.
By intentionally triggering Facebook and Instagram's strict censorship policies with pictures of topless women, the organization was able to create a viral wave of posts on International Women's Day, while simultaneously demonstrating the urgency of the issue.
On International Women's Day, Pink Ribbon's awareness message reached 29 million people, with no media spend.
PINK RIBBON GERMANY
TV SHOWS
TV SHOWS
How do you build anticipation for the next season of a show? Simple - bring key elements of the story to life. For Season 2 of Santa Clarita Diet, Netflix capitalized on the realtor storyline of the show to surprise and delight fans in the real world.
This guerilla OOH campaign featuring mock realtor ads of the characters was extended to bus benches, flyers, and anywhere else a real realtor would advertise. It was a surprise to everyone familiar with the series and even more of a surprise to anyone who actually thought they were real realtors.
NETFLIX
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
SANTA CLARITA
DIET REALTOR SIGNS
To promote the season 2 of the brilliant The Handmaid’s Tale, VMLY&R Poland and Showmax with cooperation with Showroom (Polish online platform for independent fashion) created the Last Collection.
All the outfits in the collection were based on the red cloaks from the series and were on ghost sale. People could buy the outfits, but in reality they made payments to support the Centre of Women Rights in Poland.
Additionally, the influencers and models were marching through the city in the outfits, promoting the project and season 2.
SHOWMAX
THE LAST COLLECTION
Polish Facebook page for Netflix is a source of infinite giggles and fun. Each time they post, they stun with simplicity and witty humor. Sometimes it’s not even strictly related to any given series or film. Just like this post. Looks like gibberish or butt texting until you hit the ‘translate’ button which gives a whole new meaning.
Just scrolling through their feed, you can see that Netflix is always trying to make the most out of complimentary options on Facebook and get as much organic reach as possible (in the hard times of no organic reach.
Translation from gibberish: “We will lose”
(Hit the “Change the region” button to see Polish fp)
https://www.facebook.com/netflixpolska/
NETFLIX
NETFLIX GIBBERISH
To tease Narcos S2 Netflix decided to treat fans with an unexpected surprise. A couple of days before the launch date, they showed them the first episode of the new season on Facebook Live. They were so excited until they got to minute 11 and they found out that Netflix had tricked them. Simple idea, exploring the fandom and their obsession but also opening to new audience thanks to great buzz potential.
NETFLIX
NARCOS
LORD OF THE RINGS
The Lord of the Rings TV series is still a couple of years away, but that didn’t stop the marketing team at Amazon from starting their campaign before production had even begun.
Kicking off with the iconic 'I wisely started with a map' quote from creator J.R.R. Tolkien, Amazon began a series of 5 posts on their social channels progressively revealing details of the series through a map and riddles in their copy. Headlines were generated with every post (hello earned media) and a solid foundation of over 200K fans are ready for whatever is next.
The lesson: there’s no need to post your one asset in one piece, but instead build anticipation with a slow reveal. Just remember, it only works if the pay off is truly something your audience will value.
AMAZON PRIME VIDEO
ESPN decided to buck the trend of being less interruptive and go hard the other way, finding and surprising people with individualized messages that seemed to magically appear on their phones.
The stunt, aimed at driving viewership of the NBA Finals, used Apple’s often-forgotten AirDrop feature. Personalized messages were sent to innocent bystanders who were doing just about anything except watching the finals as part of their broader “You Seeing This?” campaign in NYC.
Air Drop trolling is still a thing, most recently used by Childish Gambino to reveal his shoe collab at Coachella 2019.
ESPN
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
AIRDROPPING
THE NBA FINALS
BOJACK HORSEMAN
In August of 2018, Netflix released a new suite of profile icons for fans to enjoy which brought joy to everyone, unless you were a fan of BoJack Horseman.
Fans brought up BoJack's absence so often that the marketing team felt the Horseman himself needed to get involved. After a Twitter war between the show’s account and Netflix’s, the streaming service caved to the celeb's demand (typical) and released a BoJack icon as a make up birthday present. As extra icing on the cake and a nod to true fans, the icon created used the infamous in-show joke of BoJack sneezing. Fans were so pleased that some even got tattoos of it!
Sometimes, fans literally tell you what they want and all you need to do is simply listen.
NETFLIX
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
DREAMCORP BENCHES
In marketing we love truths, and one that we all know can't be refuted is that people love taking pictures of weird stuff and sharing them on the internet. Another truth: you spend a lot of time in a car in Los Angeles. Adult Swim decided to tap into both of those behaviors to promote their new series, Dream Corp LLC.
The only off-channel marketing anyone encountered were bus stop ads that people in Los Angeles thought were an unintentional disaster. Pulling up to some of the busiest intersections and longest lights in the city, people were greeted with bus benches that had exactly what’s needed to be the type of content that gets shared thousands of times on social media and starts a lot of confused Google searches.
ADULT SWIM
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
Sometimes the best type of marketing is the kind you don’t have to pay for - or even create.
Three Rick and Morty superfans teamed up to put together a massively powerful image and GIF search/creation engine dedicated to the show. Every episode of every season is available for people to search through using simple key words. Everything is indexed using episode subtitles allowing people to search using words that were actually said during the episode.
Imagine a tool that enabled millions of people to use images of your IP at will - for some brands, a nightmare, for others a dream of endless exposure and use in a digital world.
ADULT SWIM
MASTER OF ALL SCIENCE
SLICELINE
What's better than pizza? Free pizza. What’s better than free pizza? Free pizza delivered by drones. In preparation for the upcoming season of Silicon Valley, HBO partnered with Fooji to send pizzas to fans in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Fans looking to order a pizza simply had to tweet out #Sliceline and a pizza emoji - the hashtag is a direct reference to the first episode in the series' fifth season. While not everyone was able to receive a free pie, those that did were also lucky enough to get a Sliceline branded box.
By the end of the stunt, over 700 pizzas were delivered, #SliceLine trended in the US and saw over 11M impressions, 12K engagements and 18K tweets on Twitter.
HBO
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
Context Is everything. Cocaine drama Narcos promoted season three with a contextual out-of-home campaign that featured a rolled up dollar bill and line of Coke in toilets in cities across America.
“Here in the ’90s? There’s an 80% chance this power came from the Cali Cartel,” reads stickers placed on urinals and towel units.
The ads have proven so popular that they keep disappearing from their locations, or as the agency has taken to calling them, blow-cations.
Netflix must have felt that bathroom ads were a success as they returned to the scene of the crime for the second season of Ozark and Queer Eye.
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
NETFLIX
NARCOS
BUSINESS
BUSINESS
AWAY MODE
Hippo Insurance created an Alexa app that plays lengthy and awkward audio tracks to ward off unwanted visitors from your home.
HIPPO INSURANCE
DEFYING THE ODDS
The campaign was crafted to be present in the environments that the WiseDriving audience love, at the moments that matter to them as drivers.
Tapping into moments that matter, the campaign geo-fenced DVSA test centres and activated Snapchat Filters celebrating people passing their test.
Using data to understand which parts of the country and which specific test centres had the highest pass rates, WiseDriving investigated pass rate performance in order to focus activity on areas and times to help them find more of their ideal demographic.
WISEDRIVING
WHILE YOU WAIT
Money remittance service DirectRemit turned YouTube pre-roll ads into effective marketing messages to attract more users.
They created six videos, based on the most popular searched-for, and watched, video topics across six countries: cats, babies, car, unboxing, makeovers and nature.
All six video ads teased something incredible waiting to happen, but nothing happened. And made the point that: No one loves waiting for what they want to see done. So, why wait to transfer money, when you can do it with Emirates NBD in 60 seconds or less?
EMIRATES NBD
DEATH OF THE OFFICE
Financial software company Intuit’s ”Death of the Office” infographic is an excellent example of doing something fairly normal but doing it extremely well. Not every business needs to reinvent the wheel. Creating content that is useful and accurate is often enough.
This particular infographic provides clean, insightful data that modern businesses need to know — and modern businesses are their (relatively wide) demographic.
INTUIT
SKILLS QUIZ
Marketing to marketers is a challenge in and of itself, one method Econsultancy has repeatedly used to engage its B2B clients is its quizzes. Quizzes are a notoriously effective way to improve engagement.
When it comes to Econsultancy, the quizzes serve a dual purpose. They first encourage the client to engage with the company — and then show the client why they need training from Econsultancy.
ECONSULTANCY
GRANDMOTHER
With a belief that most advertising ignores older generations, creative agency Mother changed its name to Grandmother for the month of December as part of its ambition to rebrand old age, both in the eyes of advertisers and consumers throughout the holiday season.
To raise awareness of the problem the agency rebranded internally, replacing photos of its employees’ mothers at its reception with ones of their grandmothers.
MOTHER
GUESS WHAT WE’RE PRINTING
GE wanted to raise awareness of their innovative technology to tech enthusiasts and influential business decision makers. GE let viewers witness the process of imagination first hand through a series of "Slow TV" livestreams.
Each activation featured video’s positioned in their own printers. The livestreams gained over 2 million viewers on various platforms, many of which watched in full entirety.
GE ADDITIVE
NOT-FOR-PROFIT
NOT-FOR-PROFIT
A MINUTE OF YOUR TIME
A donation of $5 could be change for someone, or a real dent in the monthly budget for someone else. To eliminate the struggle of how much to ask as a donation, UNICEF Australia created a website that calculates how much one makes in a minute based on their yearly salary, and ask them to donate as many minutes of their time as they like.
The campaign’s message - give one minute of your time - was supported by Australian influencers on their social media channels, as well as by billboards donated by JCDecaux.
20% of yearly donations were achieved in two weeks, with 138,000 impressions and an 8% conversion rate.
UNICEF AUSTRALIA
INNOCENT CHILD PORN
For the European Day on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, Wundertech had two audiences. For one, they promoted 3 videos on social media with ambiguous titles (“little_gir_playing_with_pussy.mkv”), and reminded audiences that not all videos are innocent, and they can report online images of child abuse on stopchildporno.be. �
For their other audience, with the help of Europol, they uploaded videos to Dark Web forums where paedophiles share content, but when users clicked on the video, they received a message to to seek help immediately via the prevention platform stopitnow.be.
They reached a 40% YoY increase in reportings on stopchildporno.be, as well as 21 million media impressions and € 300.000 in earned media.
CHILD FOCUS
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
THE R-WORD CAMPAIGN
To encourage deeper understanding why the r-word is unacceptable, Avivo decided to use Twitter to tackle the issue of educating those who write it on Twitter.
�Avivo created 15 videos of people - affected by learning disabilities either directly or via a family member - explaining what the r-word means to them and how it makes them feel. They then encouraged Twitter users to share or DM these videos to anyone who used the word on the platform, creating a non-shaming, meaningful way to explain the issue.
So far, over 11,7000 messages were sent with the videos.
AVIVIO
SPACE LIVES
To expand their reach, the Royal Museums of Greenwich decided to live stream four major astronomical events (chosen based on search volumes). They used SEO-optimized web pages, Facebook advertising and PR to drive audiences to their Facebook page during the astronomical events, where experts commented on what was visible through the telescopes, and answered audience questions.
With £550 (approx $714) spent on Facebook ads, the Museums had a total reach of 308,412, with 192,475 video views, and the event series was covered in 42 pieces of press.
ROYAL MUSEUMS OF GREENWICH
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
#BLANKETCHANGE
To raise attention to the fact that more than 700 moms die each year due to pregnancy-related complications, March of Dimes laid 700 receiving blankets on the National Mall, in October 2018, coinciding with the midterm election season, to encourage Congress to keep the issue on the forefront.
The campaign itself involved videos shared and social ads, as well as an infographic and an Op-Ed piece and radio appearances; however, it proves that event-related marketing in itself can also be a powerful tool.
MARCH OF DIMES
PLEDGE YOUR BIRTHDAY
Making it easy to fundraise for a charity, Charity:Water’s website asks for a user’s birthday and email address, reminding them to post their personalized fundraising page on social media to ask their friends for donations for their birthday.
100% of the money raised is used to fund clean water projects.
CHARITY:WATER
NEWSLETTER
Returning donors are key for charities: in order to show people tangible results of their work, FMSC sends a weekly newsletter with success stories on how the charity changed people’s lives.
FEED MY STARVING CHILDREN
GIFORMANCES
To reconnect Katona József Theatre with a younger audience, we made it possible for people to interact with the theatre online and in social media. Youngsters use emotion gifs to express their feelings or reactions online. Therefore, Katona József Theatre gave them a catalogue of emotion gifs, starring the company’s most popular actors (who are also celebrities in the country). They gifs express a wide range of feelings in a fun way, and are ready to be shared on any social platform. The campaign reached every 5th person in the country.
KATONA JÓZSEF THEATRE
EVERY DAY A PLAY
To prove theater is up to date and is about our modern lives, Katona Jozsef Theater and the creative team worked together and created a mini online play, one minute long, out of the day’s most impactful news story of the country’s number one news portal. The fresh news story was chosen in the morning, when it broke. A play, a set and costumes were created real time and the play was uploaded next to the news article that same day.
KATONA JÓZSEF THEATRE
RETAIL
RETAIL
LATE NIGHT SNAP HACK
The mattress company created a website that helps you fool your friends into thinking you’re out partying when you’re actually at home.
The website generates 10 hi-def nightlife scenes at dinner parties, dance floors, and late-night drives so perfect, it'll convince your friends you're seizing the night with the best of them.
CASPER
ODDLY IKEA
IKEA always explores trends in the most creative and product oriented way. This time they build on the ASMR idea to promote the bedroom furnishings and accessories. A 25-minute video with soothing sounds makes for yet another attempt to create the longest and engaging experience with video content. And with success.
IKEA
INSOMNO3000
Mattress company Casper created a friendly, easily distracted mobile SMS bot designed to keep you company when you can't fall asleep at night.
CASPER
IKEA VS. BALENCIAGA
Imitation truly is the sincerest form of flattery...
IKEA caught wind that Balenciaga was due to release a blue bag that looked almost identical to IKEA’s own iconic bag. Balenciaga’s was $2,145, IKEA’s was 99 cents.
Timeliness was key, and IKEA had creative delivered by EOD the same day the Balenciaga bag dropped. They used a single print ad and a sole social post that drew similarities between the two bags as their 1, 2 punch to take down a legacy luxury fashion house. A strong statement to remind people of the incredible value found only at IKEA.
A testament to the power of responding quickly and simply to real-time moments in culture.
IKEA
MODEL CLAPBACK
A random guy on the internet takes it upon himself to tell girl she looks shit in an ASOS dress.
@ASOS disagree and make the girl and her photo, their model on the site.
ASOS
#CROCKPOTISINNOCENT
A lesson in crisis management. Crock-Pot found themselves caught in a crisis when a lead character from ‘This Is Us’ died from a faulty crock-pot incident. Crock-pot quickly navigated a social media storm of fan hatred, by playing up the cultural moment.
Within hours, they created the twitter handle @CrockPotCares and released the branded hashtag. The strategy quickly grabbed the attention of fans, shifting the narrative from a heavily negative story to a positive, supportive conversation.
They took it a step further by tapping into the killed-off star, Milo Ventimiglia, to create social content where he publicly forgive Crock-Pot. The conversation ignited press moments in NBC’s TODAY Show and Ellen.
CROCK-POT
#RAZORBURN
#RazorBurn: a funny insult about gross, old, dirty, expensive razors.
DSC targeted a category pain point - most razor blades are so expensive, you have to use them for a whole month… and that’s disgusting. So, they created a comedic social program to call out this truth, underpinned by the hashtag #RazorBurn.
#RazorBurn encouraged conversation around consumers’ resentment to old razors. Fans shared their own #RazorBurns through a meme generator created by DSC. DSC also responded to real-time moments with burns (e.g. aligning with Tom Brady’s appeal decision by posting “Your old razor’s so scummy it deflates footballs”).
DOLLAR SHAVE CLUB
CHECK OUT SUITE
Swedish insurance brand Länsförsäkringar and its agency, Stendahls, recently introduced a special lamp that glows red when you've had too much screen time.
Now, it has extended the idea into leisure with a hotel suite that you pay more for if you keep going online. The so-called "Check Out Suite” is a room in at the Hotel Bellora Gothenburg, Sweden that rewards visitors for staying away from their screens. The room is equipped with the aforementioned "Skärmfri" (Screen-free) smart lamp, which calculates how much you pay for the room based on how much time you spend on social media.
If you don't use a screen at all, the room is free. However, as you surf, the light from the lamp gradually changes until it starts to glow red. If it goes red, you then pay full price for the room.
Länsförsäkringar
#CASTMEMARC
A few years ago, Marc Jacobs did something radical: he cast models for his Marc by Marc Jacobs AW14 campaign via Instagram. He invited users to submit videos using the hashtag #CastMeMarc and over 70,000 people rose to the challenge, nine of whom ended up in the ad. In fact, it was such a success that he resurrected it a year later for his AW15 campaign.
Then, the designer revealed that he is bringing back #CastMeMarc – only this time, he’s not looking for models, he’s looking for beauty vloggers. He announced the news via an Instagram video starring artistic drag queen Milk from Season 6 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, who he cast in his SS16 campaign.
MARC JACOBS
PLAY FASHION SANTA
When a student at Houston’s Eisenhower High School reached out to the “Sicko Mode” rapper, Travis Scott, on Twitter, she requested his permission to use his Astroworld cover art for her class’s senior T-shirt.
Her tweet got a surprising response. Travis Scott, alumni of the same high school, responded to his hometown fan with, “I’ll just design them for u [sic] guys and send a box thru [sic] how about that?”
This act of altruism is the purest form of brand building, and what better way to approach marketing than rewarding the future leaders and viral content creators of our world?
TRAVIS SCOTT
FLIP THE SCRIPT
Melania Trump once wore a jacket that read “I really don’t care, do u?” while en route to visit detained immigrant children. In response, the pop-culture zeitgeist declared it tone-deaf through much social content and memes.
Within a few hours of the buzz, Wildfang posted a photo on Instagram to drop their version of the jacket that read “I really care, don’t u?” and announced 100 percent of sales to be donated to RAICES, a Texas-based nonprofit organization that provides free and low-cost legal services to underserved immigrant children, families, and refugees.
The radical clothing brand saw opportunity in this viral conversation and chose to use it for a good cause, raising $250,000 as of June 2018.
WILDFANG
#NEUTROGENATOTHERESCUE
NEUTROGENA
KEY IMAGE OR VIDEO
With numerous makeup tutorial videos available online, Neutrogena found an ownable tension for their cleansing wipes: making mistakes while trying on makeup.
They created 4 short videos that looked like typical How To tutorials, and added a twist. They were actually How To tutorials gone bad, with Neutrogena saving the day.
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