2021 has been another interesting year with many ground-breaking brand marketing campaigns, reaching customers through their innovative, meaningful, and quirky ideas.
With so many buzzworthy campaigns, here’s a list of our favourites of 2021! Worth keeping these in mind as a source of inspiration for your next brainstorm.
Welcome Back – Guinness
There is no doubt that the general public had missed going to pubs for a pint during lockdown. We surely had!
So, when lockdown restrictions started to ease and pubs were allowed to operate again in May 2021, the beer giant, Guinness, launched a campaign to welcome people back. The video ad included random objects having a resemblance to a pint of Guinness, whether that’s a black bin covered with snow or white pigeons on a black chimney.
The aim of the campaign was to inspire a variety of emotions including a feeling of positivity, nostalgia, and excitement. The idea was also promoted on social media with the #LooksLikeGuiness hashtag encouraging users to share their examples of white and black Guinness lookalikes.
The campaign was a great success and led to Guinness being the number one most talked about beer brand at the time with engagement 3.5 times higher than the industry benchmark.
Cuthbert the Caterpillar – Aldi
We’re sure everyone has heard about the Caterpillar war between Aldi and Marks & Spencer. When Aldi launched its Cuthbert the Caterpillar Swiss roll, M&S launched a legal action against the supermarket claiming the company had infringed the trademark for its Colin the Caterpillar cake.
Aldi’s response to this was brilliant and unexpected. They managed to turn a complex situation into a national debate through a series of funny tweets using the #FreeCuthbert hashtag.
Within hours, the brand was trending on Twitter and the topic became so big that it gained coverage from national news channels such as BBC Breakfast, Good Morning Britain, newspapers such as The Independent and Daily Mail, and creators also generating content through memes and parodies.
This reactive marketing effort gained great results for Aldi as its Twitter following increased by 30%, with a 15% engagement rate on socials. The score for news sentiment also increased by 8.5%, with its purchase consideration increasing by 6.8%.
Beanz on Bix – Weetabix
Another popular campaign you’ve probably come across either on social media or heard about through friends or colleagues, Beanz on Bix!
The breakfast cereal company wanted to drive brand engagement and demonstrate its versatility by going ahead with a bold and weird idea of having baked beans on their popular wheat biscuits.
The aim of the campaign was to generate conversation on social media, and it did exactly that. When the brand introduced the idea on Twitter, users were so outraged by the weird combination leading to involvement from other brands such as Specsavers, Nando’s, KFC, and more.
The idea became so viral that it was covered by all mainstream media outlets such as Good Morning Britain, The Express and LADbible, to even being discussed in the House of Commons.
Although the campaign received plenty of mockery and conversation, it did achieve its goal of increasing user engagement as brand awareness grew by 40% with sales up by 15%.
Kindness, the greatest gift – Amazon
Let’s conclude with a favourite Christmas campaign – Kindness, the greatest gift! With the past two years being a true challenge for everybody, especially those who have lost their loved ones, Amazon’s holiday ad message looked to promote kindness.
The video campaign consisted of a young woman forming a new friendship with her neighbour while dealing with her recent traumas. To show her support and kindness during this tough time, her neighbour gifted her something of interest from Amazon.
This has truly touched our hearts at Fusion as we all believe in the power of kindness and how a small act can help people feel better during a difficult time.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our round-up of best 2021 marketing campaigns. To find out how you can create a long-lasting impact on your target audience through digital marketing, get in touch with our expert team to create results-driven SEO, PCC and Social Media campaigns.
by Hira Nasir
