Have you ever found yourself sitting at your desk late at night, banging your head against the wall, trying to come up with innovative marketing campaigns for your new products? It’s okay if you have. We wish you wouldn’t. There are more productive ways to spend your time. In today’s world, it is hard to come up with original ways to market your products. However, that is the key to making the big bucks and it is ever so important to do it creatively. We have put together a list of 5 innovative marketing campaigns that will hopefully provide you with some inspiration for your next big project.

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5 Innovative Marketing Campaigns

 

1. True Blood: Revelation; Brand: HBO

What made the marketing campaign for HBO’s first season of True Blood so inventive and brilliant was the way they used the mythology of the show for the marketing. For example, bottles of red liquid with messages in a “dead language” were mailed to goth and horror readers, leading them to a “vampire-only” website called BloodCopy.com. What did they do here, that you could use for your next marketing campaign? They found the right audience to entertain, and they entertained them with the right story!  

2. Elf Yourself; Brand: Office Max

Elf yourself may as well call themselves a holiday tradition. It was groundbreaking at the time of its launch in 2006. It was a simple idea. Upload pictures of yourself, friends, or loved ones, onto elves bodies and on an interactive e-card, and watch yourselves dance. It became a viral phenomenon. What did they do here, that you could use for your next marketing campaign? Make it easy for your customers to participate, and give your audience an opportunity to “star” in your marketing.  

3. The Best Job in the World; Brand: Queensland Board of Tourism

If I were to tell you that I would pay you $150,000 to spend 6 months cleaning the pool, feeding the fish, collecting the mail, and exploring a gorgeous little island off the Great Barrier Reef, and all you had to do was submit a one-minute video about why you should get the job, would you apply? Well, that’s exactly what the Queensland Board of Tourism did in 2009 in an awesome campaign, and they relied on a very unlikely media channel to do so- the “jobs” section of newspapers. The Board received millions of visitors, 34,000 applicants, and 500,000 votes for this job. What did they do here, that you could use for your next marketing campaign? Don’t be afraid to experiment with non-traditional marketing channels. It is also important to remember that no brand is too small to make a large splash.

4. Let’s Motor; Brand: Mini Cooper

In Europe, the Mini Cooper had long been a big hit. However, in America, the Mini has only 2% brand awareness. At the time, most car brands were using TV/print/radio ads to market their products, Mini decided to market their products in shopping malls, on street corners, glued to billboards. Ten years later, Mini took over! What did they do here, that you could use for your next marketing campaign? Blaze your own trail!  

5. The Man Your Man Could Smell Like; Brand: Old Spice

The Old Spice Man debuted in 2010 Super Bowl ad with a super sexy man. Using his sex appeal and humor, he reeled in audiences, drawing customers to a brand that was all but forgotten. What did they do here, that you could use for your next marketing campaign? If you get a spokesperson for your brand, make sure that they can appeal to or be of interest to all audiences.

Something to Keep in Mind

“Humor and joy are two of the most important aspects of all (nearly) all interactive marketing campaigns. Humor influences the people’s behavior in a positive way…” Innovative marketing campaigns will do the trick. They will get you out of your rut, and bring you to the end of your tunnel. Do you see the light, because it’s there! Just put the practices we’ve written above into place, and you should be golden!