When it comes to digital marketing campaigns, there are hundreds and thousands of campaigns that are launched each year, but there are always some that stand out from the rest. We’ve looked back on 2016 to find the best digital marketing campaigns.
Channel 4 – We Are Humans
Channel 4 aced their campaign for the second series of the TV show ‘Humans’. The main theme around the series is that there is a product recall of malfunctioning synths (if you’re unaware what synths are, they are human-like robots).
The marketing campaign around this series was like any normal TV show advert where they show snippets of what is to come. Instead, they creatively played around with the concept of making the advert for the TV show look like an actual advert about the product recall. This advert also included a link to a website where you could experience an artificial intelligence experience, as if you were actually trying to contact the company to return your broken synth.
The concept continued through pop-up adverts on lorries, buildings and bus stops. The experience continued on social media on Facebook chat bots, where during the chat, the chat bot also begins to malfunction.
The campaign is so realistic and immersive that it made it feel like a very real experience, rather than you generic TV ad.
Lidl – Lidl Surprises
Most brands normally try and avoid putting negative and controversial comments and copy on their adverts. However, Lidl instead played on this and made it into a fantastic campaign to help answer peoples concerns and questions through a combination of socials and TV advertising.
They would show the customers the full cycle of where some of their products came from, to prove to customers that they produced food locally and ethically.
They also offered out their produce on market stalls, where they would ask the customers where they think it was sourced and they would then announce the fact that the produce actually came from Lidl, offering them a Lidl surprise.
Hotels.com – Skippable
I remember seeing this campaign from in the early summer time when many people are sorting out booking their holidays – it was digital marketing genius.
When on YouTube, you are probably all aware of being able to skip adverts after 5 seconds, but what Hotels.com did on their advert was that when you clicked on the ‘skip advert’ button, it would switch the advert to have everyone in the video skipping with a skipping rope.
It seems so simple, but it was so memorable and very tongue and cheek, making something that is normally annoying into something fun!