With the festive season in full swing, now’s the time to put up the tree, pop on a Christmas classic and consume copious amounts of mulled wine, whilst winding down for Christmas.
As the year draws to an end, we’ve taken a moment to reflect on some of the best social advertising campaigns of 2017, and have rounded up our top five favourites, just for you.
1) Heinz – Irresistible posts campaign
In August, Heinz launched a campaign as part of a quick experiment with sponsored Stories, which allowed the food porn addicts of Instagram to order the delicious food that they had been secretly drooling over. The irresistible posts campaign ran for two hours in Sao Paulo, using geolocated Stories ads to give away burgers prepared by local restaurants.
All the user had to do was to swipe up on the photo to claim their meal. Their order was then handmade and delivered in packaging inspired by Instagram posts.
Why was this campaign successful?
This campaign was both simple and effective, and in an age where millennials crave experiences, it really resonated with the audience across Instagram Stories and developed brand engagement.
2) Taco Bell – Cinco de Mayo Snapchat filter
Taco Bell broke a Snapchat record back in May, when the brand launched a sponsored lens campaign that turned consumers’ heads into a giant taco, to mark Mexico’s Cinco de Mayo celebrations. The lens reportedly took Snapchat’s creative team six weeks to create.
Why was it so popular?
Well, who doesn’t want to have a massive taco head? The ad format cost $750,000 and ran during the Super Bowl. The lens was viewed more than 224 million times and is the top campaign in the app’s history.
3) Ted Baker – Keeping up with the Bakers
Ted Baker used a multi-channel approach to refresh the brand’s image and to create interest among its younger followers. It achieved this by developing a comedy sitcom named Keeping up with the Bakers, which played episodically on Instagram Stories over an eight-day period.
With 55% of 18 to 29-year-olds in the US using Instagram, and the second largest group being 30 to 49-year-olds (28%), the brand used Instagram Stories to attract the younger audience – and with great success. The sitcom’s trailer was watched 1.9m times, with 19,000 likes on its social campaign.
Why did this campaign make the top five?
The shoppable film, complete with a virtual reality element, allowed viewers to be completely immersed in the Bakers’ world. The multi-channel approach was key to the success of the campaign, as well as understanding where your key demographics interact across social.
4) Sephora – Facebook Messenger ads
Sephora recently ran a campaign targeting women in the US, placing ads in the news feeds of those interested in makeup and cosmetics. The intention was to drive more reservations with Sephora’s in-store makeover service. Ordinarily, they would have driven visitors to a landing page and tried to get them to make a reservation from there. But with Facebook Messenger ads, Sephora was able to bring clickers straight into a conversation about booking a time.
The result of this simple experiment in Messenger advertising?
Using Facebook Messenger cut out five whole steps from the booking process overall. With just a few taps, people could set up an appointment for an in-store makeover without ever having to leave the page they were on. This resulted in an 11% higher booking rate and an average of $50+ incremental spend from customers who booked an in-store appointment.
5) Bud Light – famous among friends
Bud Light’s Super Bowl campaign incorporated the use of Instagrams Stories to engage with their audience.
Famous among friends was the theme for the Super Bowl campaign where the brand created shareable content that would highlight the moments between friends when Bud Light represents more than just beer. This involved running video ads and GIFs on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube that captured significant moments of friendship, from delivering a best man speech to dodging paintballs, to helping your pal move house. Most of the social content was repurposed from the campaign’s first spot which aired during the NFC Championship weekend, generating 458,292 views on YouTube in a week.
Why did this work?
This was a really clever way to redefine the brand and enhance emotional engagement across social platforms. Instagram Stories was a great platform that allowed the brand to portray the narrative of their friendships from the first-person point of view, with highly engaging content.
