2015 has been a year for dividing opinions with ‘THE dress’ picture, causing uproar with Protein World’s ‘Are you beach body ready’ campaign and the Airbnb controversial ads about taxes. With social media campaigns really taking to the sky’s it has been a year full of memorable, effective and inspiring marketing campaigns from businesses both big and small. I have chosen 6 campaigns which, in my opinion are some of the best to come out of 2015.
The advert came after the trend of “Fitspiration” which ended up being more negative than positive. It began to support that ‘strong is the new skinny’ but it soon turned into body shaming and unrealistic views and opinions. The This Girl Can advert features real women being active by taking part in a variety of different activities.
According to research compiled by Sport England, there are 2 million fewer active women than men in the UK but 75% want to do more. Some of the main reasons were worry of judgement and the fear of not being good enough. They want more women to forget those worries and to throw themselves into whatever activity it is they want to do.
Results
This highly successful campaign was based on comprehensive research into reasons why women participate in sport so much less than men.
According to EConsultancy over 13 million people had viewed the film online within the first 3 months. Several large media outlets have picked up on the campaign helping it to grow publicity and to spread the word. The campaign still has many people using the hashtag even now, around 11 months since the campaign launched. The social reach has exceeded 23 million with people, organisations, universities, sports clubs and businesses across the country using the hashtag to show what women can do.
Addison Lee Cabs - #RugLee
Addison Lee Cabs used the fact the Rugby World Cup was in their home town to their advantage. With creativity they worked on the hype of the tournament coming to London and targeted the digital generation using social media. They wrapped 20 of their cars in the flag of each one of the nation’s playing in the World Cup and drove around London challenging people to spot the cars and tweet or Instagram a picture with the hashtag #RugLee to be in the chance of winning a ride in the car and discounted travel. For those who just wanted to support the tournament they gave the chance to pick their team and win discounted journeys.
Throughout the campaign there were 3 main opportunities to win; the first was the ‘spot, post and win’ opportunity which gave the chance to win a £10 voucher each time a RugLee car was spotted and the image posted to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag. As well as this they also offered the chance to get up to 7 discounted journeys to people picking the winning teams in the different stages of the tournament. Finally, in the run up to the final Addison Lee offered 50% off your journey for simply supporting either New Zealand or Australia and using the promo code. Addison Lee kept offering different discounts throughout the length of the tournament keeping people interested and keen to be involved in the opportunity.
If you were one of the lucky people to spot all 20 cars you were automatically enrolled into the company’s loyalty scheme as a reward.
Results
The 20 Addison Lee #RugLee cars did over 5,000 journeys covering a total of 44,408 miles. The social campaign had a great response on Twitter with over 1900 posts using the hashtag creating over 11 million impressions. On Instagram they received less posts but it was still a huge success. Celebrities such as Stevie Johnson from the reality show Made in Chelsea and singer Ronan Keating got involved in the campaign sharing images of them with the cars. The campaign reached both male and female individuals across 109 geographic regions including people in the USA, Africa and Australia.
Always - #LikeAGirl – Unstoppable
To continue with the girl power theme, Always released a follow on advert to a campaign that began in 2014. According to a study done with over 1000 young people in the UK (16-24), 69% believe that girls would be more confident if society stopped putting negative pressure on them. When I first saw the unstoppable advert on my screen I felt moved and full of pride to be female.
The original ‘Like a Girl’ campaign began in summer 2014, and Always released a new advert in July 2015. The new ad, “Unstoppable” continues the Like A Girl campaign to keep empowering young girls through puberty showing that they too are unstoppable. The advert shows individuals being honest about their lack of confidence and how society limits them. After the success of the original campaign in 2014 which was seen by over 90 million people and generated 12 billion impressions worldwide, many people wondered how the campaign would be improved. However, Always did not disappoint. Focusing on female confidence and the ability to be unstoppable at whatever they choose to do and calling on Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams to deliver keynote speeches and TED, a respected brand, to educate and support the campaign they successfully brought it back.
In my opinion the new ad featuring young girls and women talking about what society’s social norms makes them feel they can’t do is an extremely powerful and moving video. The text ‘Always wants every girl to stay confident. So nothing can stop her’ appears in the advert and the hashtag #LikeAGirl has been used for girls to share how they themselves are unstoppable.
Results
The campaign is successfully changing people’s perceptions. After the ad was shown in a Super Bowl slot in February it soon became a trending topic on Twitter with millions of people joining in on the conversation. The Unstoppable video has already been watched more than 38 million times on YouTube and Always have managed to redefine the phrase ‘like a girl’ from being an insult to an expression of strength.
For the past 8 years TOMS has run its annual ‘One Day Without Shoes’ campaign to raise awareness for the millions of children around the world without shoes and at high risk of infections and diseases. In past years the campaign asked the public to spend some time in the day without shoes to show the importance of having them. However, the 2015 campaign was a little different.
For every pair of TOMS shoes purchased, they donate a pair to someone in need. However, this campaign meant that TOMS were giving away new shoes in exchange for a hashtag rather than a purchase. From TOMS birthday for 2 weeks until the 21st May, TOMS were persuading the public to share a photo of their bare feet on Instagram using #withoutshoes. As well as targeting customers they were also connecting with people who couldn’t necessarily afford to shop at TOMS. I love this campaign as they gave people the opportunity to do something good just by posting a photo to the much loved social media platform and without having to make a purchase. They extended the time frame to raise awareness and get more people on board with the campaign.
Results
Thanks to the campaign, 296,243 children received new shoes solely due to barefoot pictures being shared. This campaign has helped to raise awareness and will hopefully get more people on board for the ‘One Day Without Shoes’ campaign in future years. TOMS showed how such a simple action by an individual can go towards helping others. This campaign also helped spread the word of how TOMS help others and donates to people in need with every purchase.
Dog’s Trust – Doggy emoji keyboard
Dogs Trust is the UK’s largest dog welfare charity and has come up with one of my favourite marketing campaigns this year.
Apple has this year released a more racially diverse range of characters as well as a number of new emoji’s to the current emoji range. However, there are still a very small number of dog emoji’s despite their popularity in the UK. As 1 in 4 UK households now includes a pet dog, Dogs Trust wanted to do something to change this, so for their most recent campaign they created a new emoji keyboard filled with the 23 most popular breeds of dogs in the UK. The app was available to download from National Dog Day on the 26th August and is still available now.
This campaign wasn't just a chance for the charity to get more dogs into people’s social media but a chance to raise awareness of rescue dogs and to try and get more people supporting the charity. Connecting with one of the world’s fastest growing languages allows Dogs Trust to reach a large proportion of the UK population, especially with the millennial generation. Each dog emoji has been based on a real life dog searching for a new home. Using the most popular breeds allows people to depict their own pets using the icons within conversations.
Results
Of course the campaign was a success, people struggled to ignore an app full of cute and cuddly dogs! Overall the app has had over 8000 downloads and was trending at #1 on the ITunes apps store chart. The dogs that featured got an increased number of views on their page on the website making the number of people visiting the website increase too. Dogs Trust have successfully got people engaged in the app and made people think about the number of rescue dogs who need love and support. With emoji’s becoming a major method of online communication and after the Oxford Dictionary used an emoji as their word of the year I think this campaign puts Dogs Trust slightly ahead of the game.
These 5 campaigns have all been carried out by large, well known companies. However, I also want to mention a campaign by The Body Coach who has gone from being just ‘another one of those diets’ to having a huge number of fans followers. With over half a million followers on Instagram the man behind The Body Coach is Joe Wicks. After graduating with a degree in sports science, 5 years as a personal trainer and 3 years as an online nutrition coach Joe wanted to rescue people from the awful dieting industry. He wanted to ensure people knew how important a balanced, nutritious diet is and that people stopped relying on some of the popular fad diets.
This British Instagram star has so far encouraged over 50,000 client transformations through recipes, fitness tips and organised fitness programs. Some of these transformations can be seen on his Instagram as he uploads images of his clients. Although this campaign is a little different to the others I have mentioned it really stands out as being very successful this year. The reason Joe’s programs are so successful is due to the fact that he delivers information in a different way to other fitness programs. Joe uploads recipe videos in which he shouts the ingredients and throws food around as he makes the meal adding the entertainment factor. He manages to make healthy cooking fun and simple for everyone to do with his quirky videos and #LeanIn15 minute meal plans. He has used Instagram to promote his ‘90 Day SSS’ plan and his #LeanIn15 book. This shape, shift and sustain plan promises to help men and women of any size get in shape in 90 days with balanced meal plans and 15 minute sessions of high-intensity exercise.
Results
As well as gaining thousands of followers in 2015, The Body Coach has seen hundreds of sign ups to the lifestyle programme throughout the year. He has written a book full of recipes which became a top seller on Amazon and has become well-known among the general public and celebrities alike with fans including John Terry and Ellie Goulding.
Joe has created a well respected fitness business with over 40 staff and 300 clients a day signing up to his fitness programmes. It has been picked up by the press throughout the year, he's featured in Harpers Bazaar’s 10 of the best Instagram accounts for fitness inspiration in March, has cooked meals in the This Morning kitchen and has featured numerous times in fitness magazines for both men and women. The Body Coach’s approach to exercise and nutrition is enjoyable and doesn't feel like a diet as you can still eat a lot of delicious food. In my opinion, this is the answer to his success!
