Big Brands Know: Learn From Their Best Campaigns

Ever since advertising has existed, brands’ ultimate goal has been profit. In a crowded and competitive marketplace, maintaining relevance, visibility, and recognition is crucial. To achieve this, it is important to make bold moves, so what can we learn from the best campaigns of big brands?
At one point, brands were selling us a perfect image of themselves (or their products). After that stage, brands would turn the focus (from the product) to us – to our inner feelings. Recently, the newest trend has been to be honest and genuine. This may seem daunting, but a few essential elements can help capture attention and build a loyal customer base. Bold does not have to be big and shouty, it can often be the simple but consistent actions that can make the significant difference and win consumers’ hearts and minds.
In this text, we will learn about a couple of examples of big brands’ best campaigns that managed to give their brand another layer of reading.

Types of marketing campaigns

There are many different types of marketing campaigns, depending on who you’re trying to reach, your goals, or your budget. A few examples of marketing campaigns include:

• Email marketing
• Social media marketing
• Content marketing
• Direct mail marketing
• Paid media advertising
• Product marketing campaign
• Brand awareness campaign

We have singled out some of these: brand awareness, product marketing, and social media marketing campaigns. Read further to find out more.

IKEA’s Most Interesting Marketing Campaigns

It’s That Affordable

Think you can’t afford furniture? Ikea thinks you can. This campaign is essentially an atypical product placement. Making a parallel between your products and the soft drinks or coffee you drink every week proves how receptive it is. A highly stylized print ad shows how many cans of a soft drink you need not buy to save money and redecorate your room with Ikea furniture. Ikea shows how open and honest they are.

This campaign was originally created for the Saudi Arabian market, but it was too good not to be shown in other countries – so Ikea brand team suggested that it should be run in Sweeden as well. Since it was simple yet effective, the brand team considered it an “example of work” Ikea should always do. Since then, the campaign is part of the Ikea brand guidelines. This campaign was nominated at various recognized design festivals and won numerous awards.

Life is Not an Ikea Catalogue

We all know that Ikea has built a unique style in advertising. But this time, she decided to take a risk and do something out of the box. Namely, in the Life is Not an Ikea Catalog campaign, the brand moves away from presenting new products in its traditional, inspiring way.
In the videos, they show different life situations: for example, a teenager who decided to throw a party while his parents were out, which resulted in destroyed idea furniture; or a dog urinating on the carpet; or a woman who is sick and throwing up in a bucket while lying on the sofa. The idea behind the campaign is that IKEA products are designed for big and small life challenges. Whatever is destroyed can be washed or repaired – and besides, they are inexpensive and easy to replace.
Annika Mørch Asté, head of marketing communication at Ikea Norway, said: “Ikea products are made to let you handle every day because we believe that both furniture and your home are meant to be used. Sure, it’s a bit rough to see our products on TV covered in vomit and dog pee. But life isn’t always neat and tidy, so we think it’s great that the campaign can reflect just that.”

In today’s attention-seeking environment, authenticity is a prized currency. Edelman’s research reveals that as many as 81% of consumers prioritize brands that they trust and feel will act in their best interest when making a purchase decision. Therefore, it is essential to determine why your brand deserves this trust and attention. We make it our priority to ask this question during the briefing stage of our branding projects. Given that consumers lead busy lives, you must provide a compelling reason for them to pay attention to your brand amidst all the noise.
Being authentic means aligning to a purpose that feels true for that brand. A purpose-driven platform offers a broader range of storytelling opportunities. Impossible Foods has taken environmental stewardship and sustainability into the heart of its brand, using less plastic than competitors in its Impossible Burger packaging. Its eco-friendly design aligns with the company’s mission to positively impact the environment while still delivering a high-quality product to consumers.

Proudly Second Best

Another very touching Ikea campaign puts its popular products on the back burner to highlight the special bond between parents and children. An Ikea baby feeder sits unused in the background while a parent feeds a child on their lap. With its powerful and touching statement, Ikea points out that they proudly take second place – because the first place still belongs to Dad’s lap. Also, the Ikin crib is proudly in second place because the first place was taken by the mother’s chest on which the baby sleeps peacefully.

Building emotional connections with your audience is crucial to fostering engagement and loyalty with your brand. 83% of global CMOs say that an emotional connection is vital to the future success of their business. That’s because the payoff is so huge: emotionally engaged consumers spend up to two times more on brands they’re loyal to. Ikea recognized these principles and used them very cleverly.
These last two showed the Ikea brand guidelines for catalog photography photographed companies. However, in both cases, the creative director went outside the box and created what Roland Barthes calls the punctum. That is something that “stings” and “wounds” the observer (Barthes 146). There is an unexpected intrigue that attracts the viewer. The photograph is personified and moves towards the viewer, demanding attention. In both cases, this was the ultimate goal, and that’s why both campaigns are very successful; they target the audience directly with what they can identify.

One of the HEINZ’s Best Campaigns in 2023

Is That Heinz?

Have you ever taken a moment to observe how consumers interact with your brand and products while standing in the aisle of a supermarket? How do they view your brand? Are you being true? Are you doing it in a personal way? Heinz is a real example of a brand that accomplished this and became firmly entrenched in the consumer’s subconscious. What it’s really about?
In 2023, a campaign appeared on social networks with images showing Heinz ketchup being served in restaurants across Turkey with the question: ‘Is that Heinz?‘ This is because restaurants and other catering establishments would often pour some other, cheaper ketchup into old Heinz ketchup bottles – to which Heinz responded with a very clever campaign. So, bottles with new labels were created, which showed the unique color of Heinz ketchup. So, if anyone tried to fake another ketchup under Heinz, they would be exposed immediately because it wouldn’t be the same shade of red. Those bottles were distributed to different restaurants across the country.
Also, Heinz launched an Instagram filter to check – if the label doesn’t match the sauce in the bottle, it’s not genuine Heinz. The campaign went viral very quickly and earned many inviting reactions. Some of the results are: according to the agency, 97% of consumers were able to distinguish genuine Heinz ketchup from imitations, resulting in a 73% reduction in non-Heinz ketchup refills and a 24% increase in the use of Heinz ketchup in street food restaurants. Heinz also asked its audience to write in the comments where other ketchup is served than Heinz. People then wrote the restaurants’ names and locations, and Heinz sent the original product to those restaurants. They won on multiple fronts.

When you’ve accomplished this, your brand can be firmly entrenched in the consumer’s subconscious. From there, consistency will create the largest impact. Ensuring each interaction along the consumer journey does not get diluted will support and solidify your brand’s single-minded proposition. That commitment to consistency is key because, according to Forbes, it can boost revenue by 23%.

Surreal Cereal

Risky businesses 

One, perhaps not so well known, brand managed to create a campaign that exploded on social networks with hundreds of thousands of views and great publicity. Last year’s celebrity endorsement OOH advertising campaign, in which Surreal promoted good reviews from ordinary people with the same names as public figures.

Despite their legal team deeming the campaign too risky, the brand team argued that there is a gap between what is considered dangerous and harmful to brands. So, if you want to discuss your product, you need to set some ground rules or dos and don’ts. Surreal takes a pretty liberal approach to what it can and can’t talk about, with a few exceptions: politics and anything seriously offensive or harmful.

There’s what people think is risky for a brand to do, and there’s what’s actually risky for a brand to do. There’s a grey area in between, which is fine for brands to play in.

To Conclude

What did we learn from some of the biggest brands’ marketing campaigns?
For any successful campaign, it is necessary to know your audience and pay attention to all external factors that influence it. So, first of all, constantly listen to the needs and interests of your target group. Don’t forget what time you live in, and don’t ignore what’s happening around you. Think about how these situations affect your brand and try to use them in the simplest way that communicates with your audience.
Also, you should be brave and bold and take risks. As they say, he who does not take risks does not profit. You don’t have to be big to create a great campaign. I encourage you to be bold. Be real. Make it personal. The conclusion is that every good campaign requires courage.