A business with an exceptional marketing campaign is a business that’s on the long and illustrious road to success.
No matter the quality of your product, no matter the calibre of your staff, there’s very little chance you’ll succeed without advertising that catches the eye and makes people stand up and take notice.
Over the past two decades, a huge number of companies have risen to the heights of business stardom thanks to their expertly run marketing strategies. These companies have used the internet, television, vast events and even crazy stunts to make their voices cut through the clamour of other companies.
To give you a dose of inspiration for your business, we’ve found a few of the best – take a look.
The craft brewers at BrewDog have mellowed as they’ve become more successful but, like an awkward teenager trying to look edgy, the company spent a large portion of the 2010s pulling crazy stunts to promote their products.
Both the zenith and the nadir of these was Fat Cats, in which the founders of BrewDog boarded a helicopter and dropped some taxidermy cats from the air into London’s financial district, apparently to celebrate reaching an important milestone in their latest crowdfunded campaign.
At the time, BrewDog’s founder James Watt said: ‘This round of Equity for Punks has got off to a great start so we went behind enemy lines to conduct a symbolic gesture that heralds the extinction of the City fat cat.
‘This is our way of showcasing the viability of alternative forms of finance, it is our own anti-propaganda propaganda. It’s a glorious combination of art, guerrilla warfare, taxidermy and feline sartorial elegance.’
Whatever you might think of the stunt, it certainly put BrewDog on the map.
Films like The Angel’s Share have painted whiskey as a stuffy business designed for posh old men with more money than taste buds – but with their unique video campaign, content agency the SNS Group changed all that.
Put in charge of The Scottish Whiskey Awards 2019, the Group put together an ad that gave the world of whiskey distilleries a modern spin, suffusing it with a top note of rock ‘n’ roll while still maintaining an aroma of class.
Cuthbert the Caterpillar appears to be facing the trial of the century in his copyright row with Marks & Spencer, but there’s no doubt his publicity team have been stealing the show over on social media.
#FreeCuthbert took off, culminating in the German supermarket chain calling for M&S to drop their lawsuit and make money for ‘charities, not lawyers’ in April this year. Marks and Sparks weren’t for backing down, but Aldi have gone full swing ahead and relaunched the character cake, with a few cheeky nods to Marks’s own Colin range to boot.
Whether you’re #TeamCutherbert or #TeamColin you can’t deny, Aldi have some good marketing tactics.
That’s our list! What marketing campaigns have inspired your business? Let us know in the comments below.