Get Inspired:
15 Best Digital
Ad Campaigns of
All Time
5-JULY-2024
Table of Contents
Introduction
The memorable nature of ads that create a lasting impression on our minds is such a vibe of its own! The iconic ads, with their iconic shine, have made a name for themselves in the history of advertising. With digital becoming popular, the era of digital advertising has taken a whole new level in the world of advertising, with campaigns that truly make us feel jaw-dropped.Â
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Some of the most iconic ads come from the most iconic brands and the innovative people behind them. This article lists the 15 Best Digital Ad Campaigns of All Time and highlights the key lessons of what made them a huge success. Digital marketing campaign examples like these provide invaluable insights and inspiration.
In this article, you will find innovative ideas behind the world’s most iconic campaigns, why they became successful, and how you can use such tips to elevate your brand to new heights.
What makes a digital campaign successful?
The success of a digital marketing campaign can be measured through various perspectives. Of course, achieving the goals set by a brand remains one of them. Still, the most common themes include creativity, emotional connection, engagement, shareability, a clear message, and a strong content strategy in digital marketing.Â
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The iconic world of ad campaigns, in which companies spend billions of dollars every year to drive sales and achieve their goals, isn’t filled with all glitz and glam – every move can make or break a brand, and playing safe isn’t always the deal when it comes to creating something unique.
The Best Digital Ad campaigns of all time
Below, we have outlined some of the best digital ad campaigns ever created to help you #GetInspired.
1. Cheers to All by Heineken
When it comes to breaking stereotypes, Dove is the first name that we get in our minds. In 2020, the beer brand Heineken took a similar approach by breaking stereotypes around genders and their drinking preferences. The campaign features a montage of men and women being served the wrong drink, a Heineken, or a cocktail, respectively, when, in fact, they had ordered inversely. The bartenders awkwardly realize the mishap and swap drinks to enjoy their beverage of choice. The video received nearly 800,000 views on YouTube.
Lessons Learned:
- Breaking stereotypes can create a powerful and memorable impact.
- Relatability and humor are effective tools for capturing the audience's attention.
- Addressing social issues can enhance brand image and engagement.
- Relying on imagery to tell a story instead of narration can make the campaign content shareable across language and geographic borders.
2. Stratos by Red Bull
Red Bull is known for adventure and extreme sports. In 2012, it did something incredible – the Stratos campaign that pushed the boundaries well. Red Bull live-streamed a video where a man jumps from the edge of space. Yeah, you heard that right – space!
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When he jumped, he fell faster than the speed of sound. That’s faster than a jet plane! He broke the world record for the highest skydive ever. It’s like being the fastest runner in your school but for the whole world. This digital marketing campaign was all about surpassing human limits, but it also exceeded the brand’s expectations. Stratos generated an impressive 7 million views on YouTube.
Lessons Learned:
- Pushing boundaries and showcasing extreme feats can captivate audiences.
- Live-streaming significant events can generate massive viewership and excitement.
- Aligning brand identity with extraordinary achievements can strengthen brand loyalty.
3. Old Spice
Some brands remain synonymous with masculinity and masculine charm. Old Spice is one of them. In 2010, the funny and engaging campaign – The Man Your Man Could Smell Like – helped Old Spice rediscover its mojo. The use of sharp, witty dialogue and the charismatic Isaiah Mustafa proved to be a magic formula that aligned Old Spice with the young generation of buyers and surged its sales drastically. Old Spice wanted to rebrand itself for a younger audience. Observing that women made 60% of body wash purchases, it shifted focus to young females instead of young males. This shift was key to success, as they were targeting the wrong demographic. Old Spice became men’s top body wash in the USA, gained 1.2 billion earned media impressions, doubled sales in July of the same year, and saw a 300% increase in website traffic.
Lessons Learned:
- Humor and charismatic spokespeople can rejuvenate a brand.
- Sharp, witty dialogue can resonate with a younger audience.
- Innovative and memorable content can drive significant sales growth.
- Developing an understanding of the audience's needs and wants can help tap into the right audience and deliver the message effectively.
- Offering relevant content can help your brand stay on top of the game.
5. Breaking2 by Nike
Nike, with its iconic tagline, Just Do It, truly walks the talk when it comes to its marketing campaigns. This is portrayed by the way its campaigns go viral and become iconic. In 2017, Nike started a fantastic project called Breaking2. The goal? Break the two-hour barrier for a marathon.
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Nike worked in collaboration with three phenomenal runners: Eliud Kipchogui, Zersenay Tadese, and Lelisa Desisa. The project has all creative resources at full tilt with the use of advanced technology, scientific research, and specialized training techniques to push performance limits to the extreme. Although this record was not officially broken during the event – Eliud Kipchoge finished at 2:00:25 – interest in the campaign went through the roof. Millions of viewers followed the event live. The hashtag #Breaking2 – which was deployed 407,000 times during the campaign – trended globally.
Lessons Learned:
- Innovation and pushing boundaries can captivate and inspire audiences.
- Combining human stories with scientific advancements creates compelling content.
- Live events and real-time engagement drive significant viewership and social media buzz.
6. Swiggy
In 2019, Swiggy launched its Voice of Hunger campaign in a bid to entice more engagement and to bask in an unforgettable brand experience, making the campaign one of the most creative ad campaigns in India and the globe.Â
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The campaign was simple – use innovative ways to mimic food sounds and shapes to win free food from Swiggy. Swiggy collaborated with over 100 comedians, musicians, rappers, actors, and DJs to drive engagement and participation in the campaign.Â
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The campaign got so viral that Instagram had to block Swiggy’s account 11 times, driving even more PR and buzz around it. The results were outstanding – The campaign went viral, generating over 16 million social impressions and over 150,000 voice note entries from users.Â
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The activity increased Swiggy’s Instagram followers by 40%, boosted Instagram reach by 7,700%, and pushed a 2,100% spike in traffic going to Swiggy from Instagram. The campaign led to a 24% average increase in orders for food items resembling the popular voice note creations. (Source)
Lessons Learned:
- Interactive and fun challenges can drive significant user engagement.
- Collaborating with influencers can amplify campaign reach.
- Creating viral content can lead to impressive growth in followers and platform usage.
- The multi-channel approach helps reach a wider audience.
- Using AI and ML can help in personalization.
7. Fuelled by Love by British Airways
Emotions remain one of the most significant factors in driving the success of a brand. Marketing using emotions can be risky, but if the brand knows how to use them well, it can champion the game. That is what British Airways did. British Airways released an ad, “Fuelled by Love,” stitched to the narrative of a real-life story involving a flight attendant, Helena Flynn, making friends with an elderly passenger on her first-ever flight to India. It’s a six-minute short film released on YouTube and other social media sites, with a focus on digital and outdoor advertising.
The campaign featured real-life crew stories, showcasing how Helena Flynn formed a bond with an elderly Indian woman traveling by airplane for the first time. Helena later traveled to India, where she enjoyed the food and culture. The film concluded with the message, “Loving India back since 1924.”Â
It leveraged social media platforms to promote the ad and engage with viewers. British Airways collaborated with local talent and Indian filmmakers, shooting the ad in London, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. The campaign generated significant buzz and an estimated PR value of $4 million.
Lessons Learned:
- Tell stories that make people feel things so they remember them better.
- Real-life stories and experiences can humanize a brand.
- Collaborating with local talent can enhance authenticity and relatability.
8. I Will What I Want by Under Armour
For a long time, people thought Under Armour was mostly for boys and men. It’s as if everyone thought your favorite ice cream shop only made flavors boys like. But Under Armour wanted to show that their stuff was for everyone – girls and women, too.
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So, they came up with a fantastic idea called “I Will What I Want.” They featured some amazing women to help them spread the word. These women weren’t just regular people – they were superstars in sports and other fields, like:Â
Misty Copeland, an incredible ballet dancer
Gisele Bundchen, a famous model
Lindsey Vonn, a super-fast skier
Sloane Stephens and Kelley O’Hara, extraordinary athletes
Brianna Cope, a talented surfer
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Each of these women shared stories about how they worked really hard to achieve their dreams. It’s like when you practice and practice to get better at a video game or learn a new trick on your bike. Their stories showed other girls and women that they could do amazing things, too, if they didn’t give up.
This idea worked really well! It received around 3.5 billion in media impressions and earned media worth $20 million. The work produced a 28% increase in women’s sales, a 42% rise in traffic to ua.com, and 35 million earned media impressions.
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Lessons Learned:
- Featuring diverse influencers can broaden brand appeal.
- Personal stories of perseverance can inspire and engage audiences.
- Addressing and challenging brand perceptions can lead to significant sales growth.
9. ALS Ice Bucket
One of the most nostalgic internet-related campaigns is the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. This fun campaign was for a serious cause: ALS (also called Lou Gehrig’s disease).
Here’s how it worked: People poured ice water on themselves, and they shared videos online. Then, they challenged their friends to do it, too. It was a clever way to get people talking about ALS, raise money for research, and bring friends together for a good cause. Over 17 million people, including famous celebrities around the globe, dumped ice water on their heads and donated to an ALS association, raising $115 million in total in just six weeks.
Lessons Learned:
- Fun and engaging activities can drive massive participation and awareness.
- Social media challenges can create viral content.
- Partnering with celebrities can significantly boost campaign visibility.
- Timing of the campaign can help achieve goals even more effectively.
10. Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches
With its famous and most iconic campaigns, Dove, with its campaigns like Real Beauty, aims to make women feel worthy of themselves and see themselves as beautiful as they are and not think of themselves as someone else would like to see them. For its campaign called Real Beauty Sketches, Dove, in 2013, hired Gil Zamora, an artist trained by the FBI. He drew women based on how they described themselves. Then, he drew the same women based on how strangers saw them. The results were eye-opening! It quickly garnered over 50 million views within 12 days of its release, promoting self-acceptance, and won the Titanium Grand Prix at the 2013 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Lessons Learned:
- Challenging societal standards can create impactful and meaningful campaigns.
- Authentic and relatable content can drive significant engagement.
- Emotional and thought-provoking campaigns can enhance brand reputation and loyalty.
11. Google #BestPhonesForever
Lessons Learned:
Let’s revisit the Google vs Apple campaign! In the highly competitive realm of advertising, Google’s friendly approach sets a positive example. That, combined with wit, humor, and creativity, creates an impactful impression.
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The campaign launched with a series of viral videos showcasing Pixel phones playfully and humorously, garnering over 177M+ views on YouTube and 3M+ engagements since June 2023. Google’s #BestPhonesForever campaign cleverly anthropomorphized phones as best friends, highlighting their features and unique selling points with engaging, relatable content that captured the audience’s attention.
- Injecting humor into the campaign makes it more relatable and shareable. People enjoy content that makes them laugh, which can lead to increased organic reach through social sharing.
- The campaign effectively showcases the phone's features and benefits without being overly technical. It demonstrates practical uses of the phone's capabilities in everyday scenarios.
- The campaign avoids being hyper-competitive and instead focuses on the unique qualities and strengths of the product. This approach shows that competition is not the only aspect of marketing to focus on, emphasizing building a strong brand identity and connecting with the audience on a deeper level.
12. Amazon Alexa loses her voice by Amazon
It seems that brands become extremely creative during the Super Bowl. It is the time when their creativity is at its peak, and creating masterpieces is a piece of cake for them. Amazon’s Alexa Loses Her Voice remains one such campaign. During the 2018 Super Bowl, Amazon aired a funny ad.
The idea: What if Alexa lost her voice? Famous people tried to replace her humorously: Gordon Ramsay, Rebel Wilson, Cardi B, Sir Anthony Hopkins, and more. The campaign effectively showcased Alexa’s capabilities while entertaining viewers. The star-studded ad generated significant buzz and reinforced Amazon’s innovative image. It earned over 1.5 billion total media impressions and 720k mentions on Twitter (source).
Lessons Learned:
- Celebrity endorsements can add humor and appeal to campaigns.
- High-profile event campaigns, like the Super Bowl, can generate substantial buzz.
- Creative storytelling can highlight product versatility and everyday relevance.
- Demonstrating the product's value by temporarily removing it can effectively underscore its importance in users' lives.
13. #WeAccept by Airbnb
Inclusivity, acceptance, diversity – who doesn’t love these themes? Airbnb used them to shape its “#WeAccept” campaign, promoting a message of embracing different cultures and backgrounds. The ads featured real hosts and guests, highlighting stories of acceptance and community within the Airbnb network. On Twitter, #weaccept was the #1 advertiser hashtag during the Super Bowl, with over 33k tweets in the first half, the most among advertisers, and overwhelmingly positive sentiment (85% based on Airbnb’s tracker). Post-Super Bowl, site visits increased by 13% (US and Canada) in the first week and 7.2% in the following month. Most importantly, the campaign led to 15.4K volunteer host signups to date, supporting displaced populations (source). It is one of the most impactful digital marketing campaign examples of how aligning campaigns with societal causes can enhance brand image and deeply resonate with the audience.
Lessons Learned:
- Aligning campaigns with societal causes can enhance brand image and deeply resonate with the audience.
- The promotion of inclusivity and acceptance aids in eliciting a feeling of community and belonging with diversified audiences.
- Messages filled with empathy, compassion, and solidarity make relevant bonds with one's audience.
- Powerful imagery and visual storytelling: This effectively delivers the message of your campaign.
- Leveraging social media amplifies reach and engagement, encouraging user participation through shareable content.
- Addressing universal themes broadens your campaign’s appeal across different cultures and regions.
- Highlighting how your brand fosters a sense of community and togetherness differentiates it in a crowded market.
14. Deez Nuts by Frontier Airlines
Who doesn’t go nuts over cheap airfares? Those cheap airfares that Frontier Airlines created made people go absolutely nuts in 2016. In 2016, the marketing campaign “Deez Nuts” by Frontier Airlines“ came across as a humorous, eye-catching means of promoting their low prices. The campaign was followed by a series of videos and social posts using the term “Deez Nuts” that really took the internet by storm. The cheeky yet offbeat angle was an advantage in creating a younger target group and immense online buzz. The campaign was a significant success, driving increased traffic to Frontier Airlines’ website and boosting ticket sales. It demonstrated that humour and viral content could effectively engage potential customers and differentiate a brand in a competitive industry.
Lessons Learned:
- Humor and viral content can significantly boost brand visibility and engagement.
- Taking risks and being playful can attract a younger, more internet-savvy audience.
- Leveraging popular culture and trends can create memorable and shareable content.
15. #ShareTheLoad by Ariel​
You might have asked this question yourself several times – Is laundry only a woman’s job? In 2015, Ariel took this question to create an iconic campaign, #ShareTheLoad, that addressed the unequal distribution of household chores in Indian households. Ariel found that 2 out of every three women felt there was inequality in the home, while 76% of men believed laundry was a woman’s job. The campaign, conceptualized by BBDO India and directed by award-winning Neeraj Ghaywan, led to over 1.5 million Indian men pledging to Share The Load. On Twitter, #ShareTheLoad trended with 8 million impressions; on YouTube, it gained 6.8 million views and earned 1.6 billion free impressions.
Lessons Learned:
- Addressing social issues can create powerful and memorable campaigns and boost brand perception and engagement.
- Research-based insights can enhance campaign relevance and impact.
- Utilizing a mix of both offline and online channels can deliver a message effectively through multiple touchpoints.
4. #ShareACoke by Coca-Cola
The iconic brand Coca-Cola is known for its iconic campaigns. One of the key drivers for its continued success is the in-depth research they do, which is evident from the success of one of its most iconic campaigns, “Share a Coke.” Launched in 2011, it was one of its kind that used debranding for its success. The brand name Coca-Cola was replaced by the names of people and even words like “bro” or “Mama.”Â
The campaign had consumers sharing their own names on Coke bottles across social media under the hashtag #ShareACoke, which rapidly went viral and created a splash in social media engagement. First labeled ‘uncool’ by Australian youth, “Share a Coke” rebranded Coca-Cola by personalizing and emotionalizing the brand with the youth. From Australia to over 70 countries, this campaign harnessed the power of personalization and social media engagement to raise the bar for creative ad campaigns globally.
The campaign generated 500,000 photos with the #ShareaCoke hashtag and significantly increased Coca-Cola’s social media following. It increased Coke’s share of the category by 4% and consumption by young adults by 7% in Australia. Rolled out in over 80 countries, including the United States, the campaign increased sales by more than 2% and reversed a decade-long decline in Coke consumption.
Lessons Learned:
- Personalization can create a strong emotional connection with consumers.
- Leveraging social media engagement can amplify campaign reach.
- Creative debranding can refresh and modernize a traditional brand.
- User-generated content can help boost significant engagement and buzz.
Bonus: Tips to create ads that matter
Creating impactful digital ads requires more than just a good idea. Here are some tips to ensure your campaigns resonate:
Lessons Learned:
- Know Your Audience: Understand their preferences, behaviors, and pain points.
- Tell a Story: Craft narratives that evoke emotions and connect on a personal level.
- Be Authentic: Authenticity builds trust and credibility.
- Leverage Technology: Use the latest tools and platforms to enhance engagement.
- Measure and Adapt: Continuously monitor performance and be ready to adjust strategies based on feedback and data.
In the world of digital marketing, content is king. The quality and relevance of your content play a pivotal role in capturing and retaining your audience’s attention.
Wrapping UP
Therein lies the power of creativity, emotional connection, and intelligent execution among these iconic digital ad campaigns. By learning from such campaigns, a brand can go on to create their own memorable and impactful campaigns. The duration you have spent running your business is immaterial; the most important aspects are constant innovation, audience engagement, and the memory etched forever.Â
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Ready to create your own iconic marketing campaign? Contact Sage Titans today for expert guidance on crafting impactful marketing strategies, branding solutions, and memorable ad campaigns tailored to your business needs.
Happy campaigning!
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