Our Top Examples of Creative Advertising at Its Best

What does it take to grab your audience’s attention in an age where content reigns king? Well, taking a creative risk never hurt anybody!
 
Experiential marketing is all about letting your creative juices flow and sparking intrigue with your audience. It’s about creating campaigns wherein 10 years time, people will still remember your for that winning tagline or that conceptual idea.
 
Why does this matter? Well, for starters you establish a sense of brand leadership within your target market. The more memorable your advertising campaign is, the more distinctive your brand will be.
 
On the other hand, your potential reach can expand far beyond what you could ever imagine. Think about it, when you switch on the news or scroll through Facebook, you’ve definitely come across content about a thrilling ad campaign. Right? No, Courtney, you spend too much time online. 
 
Viral content is huge for getting your brand recognized by the right people and by people who you didn’t even think would be interested in your product. Long-lasting impressions will pave the way for your business’ success. You’ve just got to make sure you’re going viral for the right reasons!
 
Now, this is all good and well, but you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Yeah, okay, we get it. But, what are some examples of creative advertising?”. Let’s get to it!

Creative Advertising Examples that Wowed Their Audience

Dominos x Tinder
If there’s anything Tinder’s taught us it’s knowing when to “swipe right” and boy, did we want to “swipe right” on Dominos! With the widely popular dating platform, Tinder, taking over the world, Dominos knew that it was time to swoop in.
 
In celebration of Valentine’s Day, Dominos released their own Tinder profile where they could interact with active users. Not only were they putting their product right in consumers faces but they were encouraging positive interaction too. By “swiping right” on their profile, you were immediately connected with their chatbot, Dom Juan.  
 
Give the video below a watch to get this campaign’s full scope:

Why does this matter, you ask? Well, Dom Juan offered users a cheesy pick-up line filled one-on-one conversation that provided a delightful and engaging experience. This is marketing gold! Why? Because they were having direct conversations with potential customers. Every message they received, or every profile their content came across, people reminded of their pizza.
 
No Valentine’s Day plans? No worries because Domino’s can provide a yummy meal and some fun conversation. A win for the consumer, and a win for the brand! As you may have seen from the video, Dominos ended up all over the news and people’s social media pages, and gained an incredible amount of unpaid exposure. No marketing budget can get you the exposure that this campaign gave Dominos.
 
Burger King x Augmented Reality
Burger King recently became a viral sensation with their use of machine interactions. We already know that augmented reality is a strong marketing tactic that we’re seeing more and more marketers use. However, what makes this marketing campaign special is the extreme creativity Burger King presents.
 
Instead of fighting for their audience’s attention from leading competitors, Burger King simply transformed their competitor’s marketing into their own. The campaign allowed users to take AR and watch the competing ads evolve in front of their eyes.
 
This isn’t all that Burger King managed to achieve with this campaign. Not only were they putting Burger King front of mind for their users, but they were also encouraging app downloads and bringing foot traffic into their stores. You see, in order to unlock the AR campaign, users were required to download their app. Once unlocked and their campaign was unveiled, you could enjoy a free Whopper burger at Burger King.
 
Do you see the powerful benefits behind this campaign? Yes, it will cost a hefty penny or two, but it will bring you customers and it will keep you top of mind for months to come! Even just watching this video and not necessarily enjoying the campaign first hand will leave a long lasting impression.

 
That’s what makes a good creative advertising campaign!
 
London’s Litter x Recycling
Creating an interactive campaign is key to a winning experiential marketing campaign. When audience members are required to partake and engage with your campaign, that’s when they really start to pay attention to your messaging.
 
Even with an idea as simple as recycling, making it interactive can have a real impact on your results. A company called “Common Works” and “Hubbub” saw this and took full advantage of it in order to increase awareness for a better clean up of the streets of London.
 
This campaign allowed users to vote for the question at hand by putting out their cigarettes inside the trashcan. The result? Less litter and more conscious citizens. People were starting to pay attention to their littering habits and having the visual representation of the amount of litter smoking causes definitely widened some eyes.

The best part about campaigns like this is that they can easily go viral. Popular websites like Bored Panda picked this newsworthy campaign up and it soon became extremely shareable across social media platforms.
 
Coca Cola x Personalization… Well, any Coke Campaign actually
Is it just us or does Coca Cola really know how to bring their creative advertising A-game? It seems like every campaign this conglomerate comes out with becomes viral in seconds. Why? Because they know what thrills audiences!
 
Creative advertising requires you to dive deep into your audience’s psyche. The more you understand what thrills them, the more they will respond to your content. An added approach to knowing what they want to see is knowing how to anticipate what they want to see. Enter personalization.
 
You see, personalization allows you to get to know your audience on a deeper level.  This is where Coca Cola excels. Coca Cola knew the power of personalization when they crafted their “Share a Coke” campaign. The whole campaign relied on the power of personalization and how they knew that their audience would respond to the possibility of feeling special by having their name on their product.
 
A simple campaign like this one drove millions of sales and has been going on since 2014. It’s not often that we see marketing campaigns run for over 5 years.
 
If you haven’t seen the “Share a Coke” campaign or you’ve been living under a rock for the past 5 years, we’ll give you a little background. In order to boost sales and generate a buzz for the brand, Coca Cola released its “Share a Coke” marketing campaign. The campaign encouraged users to trade out the famous Coca Cola logo for their own names. When they found their name, consumers were then encouraged to share a Coke with their friends and family. Hence the campaign name.
 
What made it go viral? It’s simple: who doesn’t love products with their name on them?! Consumers took to social media to share the popular drink with their name on it and this saw over 500,000 hashtag generations in the first year alone.
 

 
The mix between a powerful call-to-action and connecting with their audience on a personal level brought Coca Cola a huge amount of success (viral content, being picked up by news outlets, and enjoying unpaid, organic exposure on social media) It’s hard not to see why!
 
The Simpsons x 7-Eleven
When the creators of the beloved The Simpsons announced that they were releasing a Simpsons movie, they automatically created excitement. Unlike the usual movie promotions of trailers, billboards, and press campaigns we see, The Simpsons took their movie release a step further.  
 
Instead of sticking to the normal press campaigns, The Simpsons saw the chance to take their experiential marketing to a new level. Anyone who has seen an episode or binge-watched the past 30 seasons in one weekend will easily identify Apu’s Kwik-e-Mart. Well, instead audience’s watching and reminiscing their own experiences in their local 7-Eleven, The Simpsons brought a little piece of Springfield to life.
 
All across the US, local 7-Elevens transformed into the legendary Kwik-e-Mart.  This is possibly one of the best examples out there of marketing imitating life. Every point of contact people had with these 7-Elevens, they were reminded of the much-anticipated movie release. From the identifiable Kwik-e-Mart signage to the smaller details in the interiors like placing popular characters amongst the aisles, people were constantly reminded of the movie release.
 

We see brand activations like this all the time, so what makes this one so special? It’s simple – exclusivity. The marketers behind this campaign were careful in selecting their 7-Eleven stores. The balance between efficiency and over-kill can easily be blurred. Where do you limit yourself if you have the chance of delighting customers across the board? Well, they knew the limit. The limit was created by only activating this campaign for 12 stores across the US. This means that only select states were exposed to the festivities.
 
The exclusivity of this campaign saw people flocking from all over to come and experience it for themselves. People were finally given the chance to live out their childhood fantasies of living in Springfield and being a part of The Simpson’s story.
 
Red Nose x Love Actually
Moving on from one well-loved series to a well-loved movie only seems apt. Love Actually holds a special place in any Christmas or rom-com lover’s heart due to its warm, yet realistic take on Christmas and the relationships that surround it. When you pair this English classic with a heartwarming charity campaign, it’s like the world of marketing was watching their own rom-com come to life.
 
So, what do you get when a British fund-raising event and a beloved movie come together? Red Nose Day Actually. Despite being released over 16 years ago, Love Actually holds a special place in most people’s holiday movie repertoire. Red Nose Day, on the other hand, is known for its fun and viral-worthy campaigns. So, when these two powerhouses came together, it was only inevitable that their content went viral.
 
The thing about this campaign is that it honed in on 2 aspects that they knew their audience would respond to: the trend of rebooting old classics and celebrities. Over the past 5 years, we’ve seen the likes of Netflix and Hulu bringing back series that had huge success in the 90s and even early 2000. The reason for this success is that people like the idea of following up and knowing how the story fully finishes. As an avid series and movie fanatic, I can truly attest to this!
 
Love Actually was one of those movies that offered an open-ended conclusion. Instead of neatly tying up the relationships for us, we never quite got to see what came about for these characters. That’s what Red Nose Day relied on to get them the attention they wanted. The campaign brought together the cast for one last reprise for a worthy cause.
 
People went nuts for seeing their favorite celebrities together in one of the best scenarios. We finally got to see if Billy Mack indulged in his fame or if David excelled as prime minister. Be right back, quickly going to watch Love Actually one more time.  
 
With the release of this short form, social media platforms were flooded with praises and buzz. Red Nose Day got the exposure that they were after and they completed their main marketing goal: raising funds for their charity.
  
So, what do all of these campaigns have in common? They all understood what would delight their audience and they saw how they could play into what makes their target market happy. Creating campaigns that encourage users to get involved, second-think your message or make them feel included are campaigns that see results.
 
These are the campaigns that go viral and create long-lasting impressions!