In celebration of the Halloween season, we are looking at viral marketing campaigns so great their success is scary! Here are 5 campaigns who have managed to gain brand recognition in creative and entertaining ways.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
This pairing tends to grab attention all on their own, but it’s the marketing geniuses behind the upcoming movie that have really created quite a buzz around the superhero duo and continue to do so using every social avenue they can across the inter webs and at large events like Comic-Con in both San Diego and New York.
The movie doesn’t come out until March 2016, but Warner Bros. Pictures marketing started early, debuting an action packed, high-def trailer at Comic-Con this past July. The sneak peek was the perfect way to get fans talking about the plot of Dawn of Justice.
Since the trailer release, the campaign has continued to work their magic by creating Twitter accounts for the movie’s characters, blurring the lines between reality and fiction. Lex Luthor Jr. (played by Jesse Eisenberg) popped up on Twitter earlier this month and within days had 20.6k followers.
.@FortuneMagazine Looking forward to reading about #LexCorp. Father would be proud. http://t.co/esCqzVAaAz
— Lex Luthor (@alexanderluthor) October 5, 2015
In his first tweet, the super villain’s son spoke about an interview he had with the real Fortune Magazine. The interview was a way for Warner Bros. to share the young Luthor’s origins, keeping fans apprised of what’s to come while immersing them in the mythos of the film’s storyline. A website was also created for the fictious LexCorp, a marketing strategy perhaps taken from the popular Hunger Games franchise, who also created a viral marketing campaign with several online worlds to further their film’s story and entertain loyal fans. All of these videos, tweets, casting news, plot details, and Facebook posts continue to raise awareness of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and keep their fans involved while waiting for the blockbuster to land in theaters.
Dos Equis
It was The Most Interesting Man in the World campaign that put Dos Equis on the map. The ads featuring Jonathan Goldsmith were rolled out back in 2006 and are still going strong for the Mexican beer, which is a subsidiary of Heineken International. The variety of viral marketing ads features the older and confident Goldsmith as a ladies’ man and daredevil. Each ad tells a story of the man who is always the center of attention at a party, or in a social setting, where he has several beautiful women fawning over him while he enjoys a Dos Equis.
“It was very unusual in the sense that, if you look at 99 percent of beer advertising, it’s all about young men and women in a bar,” said Avi Dan, the man who helped conceive the viral campaign. “It’s very formulaic. And we came up with something that completely went against the formula.” According to Dos Equis, U.S. beer sales increased each year between 2006 through 2010, and tripled in Canada in 2008. Sales of Dos Equis are said to have increased by 22%, a great feat when other imported beer sales fell 4% in the U.S. Fans of Dos Equis have kept Goldsmith and his entertaining tales alive with their own comical meme creations that are continuously shared across Facebook, Twitter and more.
Goldsmith’s popularity has even reached the stages of Saturday Night Live. The sketch show featured a skit with actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt spoofing the viral campaign in “Tres Equis” in which he played the son of the Man.
Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty
Dove has always been a well known brand, but increased their brand image exponentially with their Real Beauty campaign that went viral for its inspiring message that spoke to a very large demographic of people.
The videos were extremely relatable, showing how we all can be hard on ourselves when it comes to how we perceive our own beauty. The videos feature a story everyone can relate to. It warms the heart and makes the video sharable.
While Dove continues to grow their campaign for Real Beauty, the video above that is more than 2 years old, continues to attract views. The three minute clip has been viewed more than 66 million times and has racked up over 12k comments on the Dove YouTube channel.
Always #LikeaGirl
You hit like a girl. You run like a girl. You scream like a girl. We have all heard this before. Always decided to spotlight adolescent girls and how tough puberty can be, never mind the insults and stereotypes when it comes to how they feel, walk, run and talk.
Using the help of filmmaker Lauren Greenfield, Always created a series of #LikeAGirl videos that spoke to women everywhere.
“When the words ‘like a girl’ are used to mean something bad, it is profoundly disempowering,” Greenfield shared. “I am proud to partner with Always to shed light on how this simple phrase can have a significant and long-lasting impact on girls and women. I am excited to be a part of the movement to redefine ‘like a girl’ into a positive affirmation.”
On average each video shot for the campaign was viewed more than 40 million times and managed to conquer all at the Webby Awards, picking up wins for Best Use of Video (Social), Short Form Branded Entertainment (Online Film & Video), Viral Marketing (Interactive Advertising & Media) and Online Commercials (Interactive Advertising & Media).
Back To The Future
Yes, Back to the Future was re-released with one heck of a push behind it on Oct. 21, the same day that the movie’s main character Marty McFly showed up in the future in the franchise’s second film. This wasn’t the only reason the 1989 film spent some serious time trending across social media platforms.
The marketing team behind the re-release attracted nostalgic fans with a several reunions between Michael J. Fox and the Doc, played by Christopher Lloyd. The duo appeared on the Today Show and a new ad for Toyota that went viral, viewed 112,285 times in one week.
Plenty of fan created videos, discussions over the movie’s predictions and whether or not they came true, as well as memes also popped up and were shared thousands of times across the internet. By the time the trio of Back To The Future film’s hit theaters fans were lining up to see the time-bending comedies that earned millions.
