While amateur content shone in 2014, traditional professional marketing also had moments of particular success this year. From Super Bowl ads to interactive movie marketing campaigns, this post will examine three professional marketing campaigns that were particularly successful this year, leveraging traditional marketing techniques and showing that quality content can indeed beat quantity.
From traditional video ads to computer games to music festivals, Chipotle’s elegant and engaging content for their “Cultivate a Better World” campaign showed the power of quality over quantity. In order to raise awareness for their contributions to support sustainable agriculture, family farming, and culinary education, Chipotle created the Cultivate Foundation and supported it with content, including a video by the Academy Award-winning studio Moonbot and music by Fiona Apple and a game for the iPod and iPhone. This quality content engaged consumers in Chipotle’s mission and raised thousands of dollars for the cause.
There is a battle going down in corporate data centers around the world: a battle waged by the forces for virtualization and those of the of the physical network. To draw attention to this tension in the data world and to decide which side would reign supreme, Juniper Networks, a network security and performance agency, decided it was time to settle this issue in a way befitting the most honorable data warriors: through rap. Data Center Rap Battle saw figures like Kathleen from Sales spit rhymes at opponents like Vikram “The Destroyer” from IT. Equal parts B2B jargon, hip-hop swagger, and hilarious awkwardness, the creativity of this ad campaign presented Juniper Networks to all sorts of new clients and got them on the shortlist for Best B2B Marketing of 2014.
Probably best known for ads featuring football and basketball players, Under Armour flipped the tables on its own advertising with this campaign. Featuring American Ballet Theater soloist Misty Copeland, the “I Will What I Want” advertisement was an astonishing redefinition of what a sports endorsement could and should be. Featuring simple, elegant footage of Copeland’s powerhouse dancing over a voiceover reading her rejection letter from a ballet academy (in part due to her imperfect Achilles tendons and torso length) the ad highlighted the strength and perseverance of its star. “I Will What I Want” was a viral success, garnering over 6 million Youtube views.
Trying to tell a story with a very technical product is challenging for many B2B brands. For example, how is a company supposed to make a router for a network convergence system seem interesting and approachable? This was Cisco’s problem in 2014 as they prepared to market their network convergence system, designed to work for the “Internet of Everything” and connect people, data, and individual networks while handling the tremendous workload associated with the internet. In order to do this, they created Youtube videos that captured hilariously unsuccessful attempts to solve problems in order to illustrate how their competitors are not set up to meet the increasing demands of the internet–and why Cisco’s product is the solution.
What professional content did you see this year that stuck with you?
Photo Credit: nuggety247 via Pixabay
(Click here to expand)
