May has come and gone, which means I’m back to give you your monthly dose of what campaigns made it into the Drift team’s swipe file.
For those new to this series, at Drift, we have a very active Slack channel where the team shares all the marketing campaigns, messages, and stories that catch our attention.
Here are my top five picks from May 2021:
1. TikTok’s “Where Fans Play” Campaign
Call it soccer, call it football. Whatever you call it, it’s the sport that has 119 billion views on TikTok (and counting).
To celebrate soccer’s return and the upcoming Euro 2020 tournament, TikTok put out this new campaign called “Where Fans Play” to tap into the growing excitement it’s been seeing on the platform.
User-generated content is some of the best marketing out there right now. And TikTok is one of the best in the game at it (I had to). Because there’s no better way to tell a story than to take it straight from your customer’s mouth – or in this case, their TikTok.
2. NASA’s AAPI Heritage Month Video
This one was a shoo-in because I am a sucker for anything space-related (on that note, I highly recommend listening to our interview with the space technology company Maxar’s CMO – it may be my favorite podcast episode ever).
Like I was saying, I love space. In this video, we get to meet some of the amazing AAPI professionals behind NASA. It was inspiring to say the least, especially during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
If you want to create an emotional connection to your brand, you’ve got to show the real people, and the real stories, behind your brand. Stock photos and cartoon animations won’t cut it.
3. The New York Times’ Vaccine Chatbot
Uncomfortable conversations – they’re not just for the Thanksgiving dinner table.
Talking with friends and family about getting the COVID-19 vaccine may require some persuasion. And as someone familiar with Robert Cialdini’s six principles of influence, I enjoyed this take from The New York Times about how to use persuasion to talk about a potentially sensitive topic. Plus, how could I not LOVE the fact that this was all done via a chatbot?
As the Times put it, “We’ve created a vaccination chatbot based on the principles of motivational interviewing, a research-backed approach for encouraging people to get vaccinated that’s used by health care professionals to harness people’s innate drive for change.”
For Drift users, this kind of experience is not hard to recreate (on a topic that feels right for your brand, of course). Check out our Uncle Larry bot, a lighthearted chatbot we built to help people navigate tricky conversations around the holidays.
Want to get started, but not sure how? Drift’s Playbook Basics Certification will have you spinning up your own chatbots in no time.
4. Twilio’s 2021 State of Customer Engagement Report
There’s a lot of reports floating around trying to summarize the impact of COVID-19 on businesses. A lot of these reports fall flat and leave you wanting more.
Not Twilio’s. The customer engagement platform’s annual report is like a gift that keeps on giving. So many good observations, stats, customer examples, and more. Here are a few key findings from the report:
- 92% of companies said COVID accelerated their move to the cloud
- 96% reported that not shifting to digital would have negatively impacted their business
- And many plan to increase their digital channel usage moving forward
Plus, the design is really sharp.
5. The #LooksLikeGuinness Ad
I’m going to cut right to the takeaway here – simple ALWAYS works. In this understated ad from Guinness, the first thing you hear is the song “Always on My Mind,” which immediately sets a nostalgic tone for the montage that follows, where every image looks like the iconic dark beer with the white foamy top.
There are the socks on a clothesline, the white cat atop a black trash can, the graffiti on a phone booth, and so many more everyday images that were all thoughtfully brought together to remind you of a beautiful pint of Guinness.
And then it closes with the line, “Good things come to those who wait.”
Simple, powerful marketing.
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What marketing inspiration have you come across lately? Send me a message on LinkedIn and help me add to my list.
The best marketing campaigns don’t just happen overnight. Learn how you can use integrated campaign planning on your marketing team – and you might just win a spot in our next monthly roundup. Download the toolkit here.
