In his book “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable”, Seth Godin says that the key to success is to find a way to stand out, to be remarkable. The most memorable and successful marketing campaigns create emotions and bonds with their audiences.
Here is our list of the most creative social media marketing campaigns of 2013:
SunGard Zombie Survival Kit
I’ll start with an excellent B2B marketing campaign example. SunGard Availability Services took advantage of the popularity of zombies in current media and culture and created an amazing B2B marketing campaign.
The concept of a zombie apocalypse fit perfect into the business’ profile. The main objective was to generate awareness by creating content that would rise above the usual white noise in B2B marketing. At the same time, they wanted to demonstrate to IT professionals how they could benefit from the cloud while fully protecting their data and applications.
This multichannel marketing effort was relatively simple: emails driving recipients to a landing page, and two key pieces in the direct mail sends. They also create a social media campaign on Facebook where they offered a Zombie Apocalypse survival kit. All of the campaign components served to provide the core messaging about SunGard's products and services.
The results were more than satisfactory. The zombie themed campaign resulted in exceeding download rates by 300%, a 5.7% email open rate and 20+ leads.
Coke Zero Sweater Generator
Coca Cola and the Christmas Holidays are a match made for life. Coke Zero launched the very first sweater creator – an interactive tool that allowed users to create their very own sweater using a simple menu.
Users could choose a sweater style, the color they like, patterns and different graphics like polar bears, dolphins, moose, unicorns and even what appears to be a pirate snowman. Once the designer is happy with his sweater, he can submit via Facebook, Twitter or email address. The 100 sweaters that are voted the best as of December 1st have been sent to their creators for the holiday.
This campaign was fun, creative and interactive. These are the main ingredients that made Coke Zero Sweater Generator a huge success. According to Bobby Oliver, senior brand manager at Coke Zero “In its first 36 hours, the generator has resulted in nearly 18,000 sweaters”.
BatKid saving San Francisco
This amazing campaign shows that an entire city can give a helping hand in need. Miles Scott, a five year-old boy, in remission after fighting leukemia, told the Make-A-Wish Foundation that his wish was to be “Batkid”.
The campaign was planned and directed by the Make-A-Wish Foundation and a small social media agency. Using the hashtag #SFBatkid, the campaign was entirely Twitter-focused (though it also had a Facebook page). After the campaign went viral, thousands of people in San Francisco volunteered to help accomplish a little boy’s dream.
The results were amazing: nearly 600,000 tweets and 1.7 billion total Twitter impressions in ten days. In the end, the campaign became so big that 20,000 people showed up to see Miles rescue the damsel in distress and get the key of the city.
Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise
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The “Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise” campaign was meant to promote Kimberly Peirce’s adaptation of Stephen King’s horror classic “Carrie”. In the clip, the customers from a New York City coffee shop witnessed the rage of a girl that unleashed her “telekinetic powers” on someone who accidentally spills her coffee.
The video proved to be a real viral hit. Based on the number of views on YouTube, over 53 million views on, the clip spread fast all over the Internet. The fascinating and entertaining content was the key that made this campaign so easy to spread.
Oreo’s Super Bowl Tweet
Sometimes when the lights turn off, a great idea comes out. Some of the most successful social media campaigns come out of the blue. This is the story of the famous Oreo tweet. They saw an opportunity and took it.
During the Super Bowl the power went of causing a 34-minute delay. During this time, the company went online and started posting on Twitter. The amusing tweets dominated all social media channels. Within minutes, the message had over 15.000 retweets and more than 20.000 likes on Facebook.
All these campaigns have a few things in common. They’re creative, original, fun and awaken the curiosity of the users. They all focus on strategies that create a genuine connection between the company and its audience. This being said, every story wrapped in a great content, in the right place and at the right time, will create lasting impressions.
