From Prime Day to Black Friday: 8 best marketing campaigns to inspire you all year long

What makes a great marketing campaign? There’s plenty of advice out there on marketing tips but the secret is knowing your audience and how to put these insights to work. 

Here are some of our favourite marketing campaigns and tips on how you can follow in their footsteps to ramp up your efforts. 

1. Kwik Fit’s tactic to jump on a seasonal trend
2. Hjärtat’s coughing billboard
3. M&S Food’s pop-up tasting experience
4. Curie’s way to partake in Prime Day without being on Amazon
5. Fly by Jing’s tiered discounts
6. Amazon’s Black Friday Live
7. Lucy & Yak’s purchases with an impact
8. Sainsbury’s advert inspired by real events

New Year’s: Kwik Fit’s tactic to jump on a seasonal trend

People like to use the start of a new year to work on their resolutions, many of which involve self improvement. In 2016, Kwik Fit taps into this recurring consumer mindset with their Fit Kwik campaign. As a car servicing and repair company, you might wonder how they managed to connect their sector with this health and fitness trend.

But that’s exactly why it caught attention. Kwik Fit introduced a workout regime, dubbed Fit Kwik, to help people lose their ‘spare tyre’, involving a tyre. Featuring a personal trainer, this immersive campaign was trialled at their New Kent Road centre in London throughout January.

This is a great example of a business that managed to jump onto a trend that wouldn’t naturally be linked to their sector. Take inspiration by analysing which seasonal trends could work, even if you take the ‘tongue in cheek’ approach like Kwik Fit did. And if a trend isn’t completely relevant, are there any other brands or individuals within a sector that is relevant that you could partner with?

New Year’s: Hjärtat’s coughing billboard

Swedish pharmacy Hjärtat launched a billboard campaign aimed at helping people cut down on smoking and live healthier, longer lives. The billboard contained a smoke detector and featured a man coughing every time he smelled (or the billboard detected) cigarette smoke. It certainly caught attention, from both smokers and non smokers alike.

Another great example of an eye-catching campaign, it also makes you stop and think about your actions. 

Summer: M&S Food’s pop-up tasting experience

Want to create a campaign that sticks in your customers’ minds? Use as many of the five senses as possible. M&S Food, the supermarket branch of British retailer Marks & Spencer, launched their Spirit of Summer campaign to promote their new food range in August 2017.

Featuring popular dishes and ingredients from the south of France and Portugal to Italy, it wasn’t just a tasting experience. The event also included bar tasting and live music, making it an event that people will remember. 

Consider how you can make your marketing campaigns an experience. While you don’t need to organise an event like M&S did, think about what would entice your customers and prospects to engage with your campaigns. For example, alongside email and social media comms, how about hampers or personalised items that will help them remember you?

Prime Day: Curie’s way to partake in Prime Day without being on Amazon

Based on the name, you might assume that only businesses that sell their products on Amazon might participate in Prime Day. But that’s not the case. 

Take deodorant and bodycare brand Curie, for example. Using Prime Day as the angle, they offered their customers 20% off as a reward for shopping directly with them – a discount they wanted to pass onto customers instead of paying Amazon. 

Use this as inspiration for the next time there’s a big event that wouldn’t normally be totally relevant for your business.

Prime Day: Fly by Jing’s tiered discounts

Rather than offering the same discount across all purchases, Sichuan chilli sauce brand Fly by Jing launched a tiered discount scheme for their best selling items. Perfect if you want to boost average order value. 

Want to try this tactic out for your next sale? Choose a handful of products you know your customers love, strategically select your discount tiers and watch the orders come in!

Black Friday: Amazon’s Black Friday Live

The world’s busiest e-commerce event of the year is nothing without Amazon who brought Black Friday to the UK back in 2010. In 2021, the e-commerce giant turned the traditionally shopping-centred weekend into a four-day free event featuring live music, films, books and more.

Amazon Black Friday Live invited guests to enjoy events such as cocktail making with Laura Whitmore, a book reading with Alesha Dixon, music from Ray Blk and more. And in addition to the star-studded schedule of events, household brands showcased exclusive promotions so attendees could still get their discounted shopping fix.

This is a prime example (no pun intended) of how Black Friday campaigns don’t just have to be held online nor do they have to revolve around e-commerce. Take a leaf from Amazon’s book and plan your own in-person event. It doesn’t have to be as swanky; consider what you could do to create an immersive experience.

For example, launch a pop-up shop for a limited time only.

Black Friday: Lucy & Yak’s purchases with an impact

Independent British clothing brand Lucy & Yak is passionate about making positive changes. For Black Friday 2021, they launched a six-day campaign that focused not on sales but donating a third of their profits to the Fior Di Loto school, which is next door to their first factory in Rajasthan, a region in India. This money ultimately helped to improve the living conditions of and provide an education for more than 700 girls in that area.

Over the course of the campaign, they regularly posted on their social media channels, explaining how many girls they were able to help, thanks to their customers’ purchases. This campaign certainly pulled on the heart strings and encouraged customers to make purchases for a good cause.

This is a great example of how you can encourage your customers to join in with a charitable cause close to your business’s heart and use a popular day like Black Friday to promote it.

Christmas: Sainsbury’s advert inspired by real events

With an event as significant as Christmas, advertising and marketing campaigns can start as early as October! Though, they usually start coming in waves from November. A great way to ensure your campaign stands out is to invoke an emotional response from your audience.

Sainsbury’s 2014 advert, for instance, is based on the 1914 Christmas truce, where a series of unofficial ceasefires took place along the Western Front of WW1 from 24-26 December. Featuring soldiers from both sides of the war singing Silent Night and coming together to celebrate Christmas, it reminds you that this time of year is about sharing happiness and joy, no matter the situation.

Even if you can’t tie your marketing campaigns in with historical events, think about how you can invoke an emotional response in your audience. Another example is Disney’s 2020 Christmas advert. What personal memories can you remind your audience of?

What’s on the agenda for your next marketing campaign?

The creative examples may have inspired you for your next campaign. What will you do to prepare? Do you know what your customers are expecting when it comes to brand engagement and the retail customer experience?

In our guide, we discuss how businesses can win the brand and loyalty battle. Download your copy here. For even more tips and tricks, reach out to our expert team today.