In 2019 Canada spent over 11 billion U.S.D. in the advertising industry. That’s an insane amount! So why would companies spend so much?
Marketing campaigns are a strategic execution to reach a specific goal. These campaigns can be a form of print media, social media ads and sponsorships, television/radio ads or a combination of all the above. These goals usually consist of: introducing/raising awareness for new products, creating buzz around your brand, building relationships and loyalty with your consumers. As a result, this typically ends with increasing sales. Cha-Ching! $$
In this blog we will look over ad campaigns that made an impact – here are 3 advertising campaigns that made marketing history.
WestJet – Christmas Miracle: Real-time Giving
WestJet, a Canada based airline created a “Christmas Miracle” during one of the most hectic travel seasons. With the help of 150+ volunteers and 19 hidden cameras they were able to create an unforgettable experience for 250 passengers and a successful campaign.
Before boarding, passengers were asked through a live video stream with Santa Claus – “What do you want for Christmas?”. Once passengers board on flight, Santa’s little helpers were off to work collecting personalized presents for the guests on board. After arrival passengers were happily greeted by gifts at baggage claim, some impressive presents included a flat screen television!
The Impact
The campaign video was posted on youtube on December 3rd 2013. Westjet projected 500,000 views but it quickly exceeded their goal and became the most watched ad of 2013 with a whooping 35 million views! Creating “feel good” videos and encouraging social good is a great way to create viral content. One YouTube viewer commented “Everyone is starting to do these ‘giving back’ videos because they know they are the most viral. Big ups to the marketing team for WestJet. :)” – Proximity
Several young adults and teenagers were asked to perform tasks such as run, fight, throw but “…like a girl”. The participants acted out these tasks “like a girl”, influenced by how this phrase is oftentimes used as a demeaning quality and an inferior trait.
The next set of participants were rolled out, this time they consisted of children and pre-teen girls. They were asked to do the same tasks as the young adults and teenagers, but their response was different. “Like a girl” was not a demeaning quality or an inferior trait for them, but a challenge to perform the tasks to the best of their abilities.
At the end of the ad both groups of participants were asked what it meant to do things “like a girl”, many of the older participants admitted that it was a shameful characteristic.
The Impact
The campaign video gained over 90 million views on YouTube, making it one of the most viewed videos on the platform. This created quite a stir in the Twitter community, the hashtag #likeagirl trending. Always’ Twitter followers tripled and their YouTube subscribers continuously grew.
The campaign created a dialogue about sexism and the stereotype behind “like a girl”, many trying to change the phrase into something powerful opposed to an inferior trait to “man”. Shortly after the video was posted, a study was conducted and majority of women and men both agreed “the video changed my perception of the phrase ‘like a girl’”.
This campaign was a success, it created an emotional connection to its consumers, many considering Always as a preferred brand and the intent to purchase grew by 50% (compared to Target) vs competitors.
Old Spice – The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
The 30 second commercial was played by actor Isaiah Mustafa, where he approaches the audience with a confident demeanor, spitting out monologues while carrying out various activities in multiple locations and outfits, never losing eye-contact with the camera to advocate benefits from using Old Spice’s products to become the man your woman desires.
The Impact
Although this campaign was not advocating doing social good or changing social norms, it was successful because it was comical and amusing. It gained 105 million views on YouTube becoming the #1 most viewed sponsored ad on the platform and was shared through multiple international media outlets. It increased social media engagement through Twitter, Facebook and Old Spice’s website traffic.
With positive feedback, several sequels were made, such as “Old Spice – Body Wash” making a huge campaign around the “Old Spice Guy”.
Creating a Successful Marketing Campaign
Running a successful campaign can be challenging. A few things we can learn from the 3 advertising campaigns that made marketing history is that a brand’s narrative cannot just be pushing and selling a product. In order to resonate with consumers, it needs to create a human emotional bond vs corporate artificial bond.
At The Influence Agency we offer a wide range of services to execute your marketing goals. Contact us today to find out how we can help you create your next successful marketing campaign! Who knows? Maybe you’ll make marketing history too!
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About the Author
Caelia Luk
Caelia Luk is the Lead Developer at The Influence Agency and specializes in Wordpress and Shopify development. She’s a proud mama of 4 adorable fur babies. When she’s not coding away, she’s out at the dog park with her fur babies.
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Perfect Your PPC Marketing Strategy Paid Search Checklist
1. Define Your Goals
Are you aiming to increase web traffic or grow your social media presence? Figure out why you’re leveraging paid media in the first place and build your strategy from there. Having clearly defined goals in mind will help you focus on your brand’s key priorities.
2. Outline a TOFU/MOFU/BOFU Strategy
Designing strategies that cater to all three stages of the buyer journey ensures that you’re maximizing your brand’s reach. Every user at every stage is valuable—and you have to make sure you’re creating paid media content that speaks to each audience type.
3. Research Keywords for Search
Effective paid media is tied to targeting the right keywords. If you’re leveraging paid search ads to appear on SERPs (search engine results pages), then in-depth research is necessary. Bid on the keywords that are most relevant to your business to trigger only the most effective ad appearances.
4. Craft Engaging Ad Copy & Stand-Out Creative
Gather your team—because it’s time to start coming up with ad copy that wins attention. The key is to resonate with your audience and inspire engagement. Be real. Be relatable. And most importantly, don’t underestimate the power of creativity.
5. Create Conversion-Friendly Landing Pages
Do the landing pages on your website effectively push visitors further down the sales funnel? If not, you’re letting potential customers slip through your fingers. Optimize each of your landing pages so that they nudge users towards converting.
6. Choose Your Paid Platforms
The options are plenty when it comes to paid advertising, including Google, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Pinterest among others. Analyze who your target demographic is, research where it’s best to connect with them, and then target the platforms where you wish to build awareness.
7. Build Campaigns & Ad Groups/Sets
If you’re ready to build your paid media ad campaign, you’ll find that it will be further broken down into “ad groups” to ensure more effective pay-per-click advertising. These ad groups house one or more ads that have similar targets or categories. Let’s say your brand’s website features categories such as clothing, shoes, and accessories. Creating ad groups according to keywords that fall under these categories will help the PPC system decide when to show ads for these products.
8. Don’t Forget About Retargeting Ads
Retargeting ads are bound to succeed because it’s a second shot at a conversion. Visitors have shown interest in the product/service once before, and sometimes all it takes is a little reminder to push them to the checkout page. So don’t forget to retarget and aim better this time.
9. Run A/B Tests
In the world of paid media, what works and what doesn’t? You’ll have to run A/B tests to find out! Whether you’re testing which keywords bring more traffic or which social platforms earn more ad engagement, you won’t find out what really works for your brand until you test it.
10. Track Your Results
Revisit your initial goals. Did your efforts bring about the results you expected? Tracking results is an essential step in your brand’s paid advertising campaigns. The data you collect from currently running ads will help lay the foundation for your future campaigns.
11. Adjust as Needed
After tracking your results, you’ll be able to see where adjustments are necessary. There’s always room for improvement, so keep striving to consistently resonate and build trust with your audience—it’s how to create paid ads that pay off.
Perfect Your PPC Marketing Strategy Paid Search Checklist
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