5 top promotional campaigns which recently caught our eyes
Some members of the Team Locals team basically live online (we’re looking at you, Jeeves), so we’re always seeing the funny, creative, and engaging ways brands are promoting themselves worldwide with new media. Here are five of our recent favourites.
Spotify advertises adverts
I mentioned Spotify in a similar post around this time last year, touching upon their ‘Thanks 2016, It’s Been Weird’ campaign. In 2018, the music streaming service are being just as savvy, spinning the oft-reviled concept of Spotify ads into something of a positive. This new campaign aims to reframe the ads on Spotify’s free subscription tier as a worthwhile compromise for endless free music, and touts the level of personalisation as superior to the libraries, algorithms, and playlists of rival services.
Flipping the P
IHOP — that’s International House of Pancakes, a chain that’s especially popular in the US — recently pulled a marketing stunt which confused everyone, then spawned a meme, then ultimately did very little else. They announced they were flipping the ‘P’ in their name to become ‘IHOb’, with the ‘b’ standing for ‘burgers’. Store signage changed, social media handles were switched, and ads ran on TV.
The meme came in the form of millions of Twitter users replacing the letter ‘p’ with ‘b’ in every word they wrote. As simble as that.
Whilst the marketing ploy certainly stirred up a lot of online attention, location data heroes Foursquare interjected claiming that footfall in IHOb stores remained flat during the week following the campaign’s launch. And, of course, Wendy’s got a sick burn in:
Shakespeare goes responsive
Every designer dreams of creating an entire brand language as iconic as Vignelli’s Subway signage or (as I mentioned in this Compass Muscle Therapy logo story) Wyman’s México 1968 Olympics theming. Renowned agency Pentagram have done just that for The Public Theater in New York and their annual Shakespeare in the Park performances.
Pentagram have worked on promotional materials for the yearly outdoor event many times, but 2018’s campaign takes things to a whole new level with dynamic extending typography which looks magnificent in print and mind-blowing in motion.
The vibrantly-coloured Shakespeare in the Park branding has also been stretched to include signage and merch at the events.
Do you even lift?
Netflix continue to throw a seemingly endless amount of money into their marketing. One of this month’s biggest campaigns has seen immersive billboards popping up in major US cities, promoting the Marvel superhero series centred around the titular Luke Cage, whose powers include superhuman strength and unbreakable skin. The billboards are being pivoted into the air by a statue of Luke Cage. Simple, but beautifully effective.
Tampon tax timelines
Politics can be difficult to keep up with at the best of times — especially now the US is headed by someone who recently told 71 lies in the span of 14 days. Thankfully, some organisation are making an effort to demystify what the heck is going on. American nonprofit Planned Parenthood have worked with digital product agency Work & Co. to create a website named ‘Tracking Trump’, offering a highly accessible timeline of how the US President’s policy changes are negatively impacting women’s health and reproductive rights.
The website does a fantastic job of striking a balance between complexity and contextual delivery. There are plans for a filter system that’ll aid in finding specific information faster, as well as a web browser extension to offer notifications whenever an update is posted.