Looking back, we might all consider 2016 a crazy year. When it comes to marketing campaigns, however, it was a great. Continuing from the last blog, here’s part II of the best marketing campaigns of 2016.
Xbox Design Lab Instagram Posts
Instagram can be difficult for brands to master. You have to capture the visual image of your brand in a fun, artistic way that makes people stop scrolling through their feed and go “wow!”
Xbox captures that exact Instagram feel, says Business to Business Community, in their article, The 13 Best Instagram Marketing Campaigns of 2016. “They don’t look like something copy-pasted from a Facebook post or some hero image on the Xbox site,” author Carlo Pacis writes. “They’re uniquely crafted for Instagram as a medium with the users in mind. Each photo is beautifully color-coordinated; even though the Xbox controller is central in each of them, it’s not overly emphasized. It’s just the right amount of promotional.”
Snapchat’s Snap Spectacles
Smart Insights lists Snapchat’s Snap Spectacle as one of the best marketing campaigns in their article, The Most Innovative Marketing Campaigns of 2016. Snap Spectacles are basically camera glasses. While wearing them, people take photos/videos by pressing a button on their spectacles, which is then wirelessly uploaded to their Snapchat.
What makes the marketing plan for SnapChat’s Spectacles so genius was how they launched the product. As Smart Insights writes:
“Everywhere a Snapbot is ‘dropped,’ crowds gather and long queues form. These are all full of trendy young people spending hours in the queue taking photos and tweeting about being in a queue to buy some Snap Specs. What better way to get an absolute bucket load of free attention on social and free PR when the papers pick up the story. Rather than just being in the press once when it was launch, Snapchat keeps making the papers every time a new Snapbot is dropped in a major city, getting several times the coverage any traditional product launch would likely have received.”
There’s nothing like stirring up demand for a product when supplies are limited. While Snap Spectacles will most likely be available for anyone to purchase soon enough, for now, people will line up for blocks just to get a pair. Who doesn’t want that kind of product demand?
Under Armor’s Michael Phelps’ Ad
As we’ve mentioned before, ads that tell stories are a great way to draw your audience in. The more powerful the story, the more powerful the ad. That’s what AdWeek points out in their article, The 10 Best Ads of 2016, when they named Armor’s “Rule Yourself” ad starring Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps.
“The brief was simple: Explore the rigors of training through the lens of Michael Phelps ahead of the Olympics in Rio,” author Tim Nudd writes. “The finished spot was astonishing, using darkness to paradoxically shed new light on one of the planet’s biggest stars—and the physical and psychological cost of dedicating one’s life to swimming at the highest level.”
Watching the ad, you can’t help feel inspired. There’s no doubt the next time you’re looking for sportswear, Under Armor will come to mind.
What were your favorite marketing campaigns of this year? Let us know in the comments!