Here we are once again, at the end of another year. Where does the time go? It feels like just yesterday we were here discussing our favourite Christmas campaigns of 2021.
This year, we’re going bigger. We’ve gathered the favourite marketing campaign of the year from various members of the team here at Faith, and we’re going to take a look at what was strong about each of them. Get ready for a review of 2022’s campaigns through the eyes of PR agency experts!
Rhianne: Duolingo
Duolingo’s TikTok campaign over the last year has been one of the most applauded and impressive of 2022.
They’ve been recognised as one of the first brands to really let go and launch a TikTok campaign that targets Gen Z humour, with a smashing success, as the brand continually pulls organic content with millions of views. Right at the beginning of the year the app rocketed up to #1 on the Educational apps chart, and social success has continued over the course of 2022, showing the brand has a strong presence and pull for audiences.
The videos utilise the well-known green bird mascot, Duo, with playful or ridiculous scenarios, such as Duo scaring people into learning languages or dreaming of marrying pop singer Dua Lipa (because of their similar names). The down-to-earth approach doesn’t focus on pushing a particular product, but completely heightens their brand presence to give the company an approachable, modern brand face.
Stef: The Gender Pay Gap Bot
The Gender Pay Gap Bot popped up one day earlier this year—specifically March 8th, International Women’s Day. It’s been tweeting ever since, and the fully automated account now has 231k followers.
The purpose of the bot is to tweet in response to the companies tweeting out International Women’s Day key phrases. The response tweets contain publicly available data about the gender pay gap present within the company, as listed on the government’s gender pay gap service, which typically reveal that these companies do not have an equal pay rate within the organisation.
The bot wasn’t set up to campaign for a business or product, but rather for a cause, exposing the data behind an issue that many people care about. The campaign received global media response, and resulted in several companies releasing statements to explain their data. It goes to show how issues that people feel strongly about can go viral with a simple idea, technical support in the execution, and organic circulation.
Tom: Sam Teale Productions alternative Christmas ad
A more recent campaign for this one—Tom’s choice has been the ‘alternative Christmas advert’ put out by Sam Teale Productions to raise the profile of the video production agency.
Rather than advertising a particular product or brand, the video focuses on Christmas amidst the cost of living crisis, following a bereaving father trying to make Christmas special for his young son.
The video has raked in over 13 million views on Facebook with similar high figures on Tik Tok, going viral within 24 hours of being published online. It’s safe to say the small business (based in Tom’s hometown no less!) was successful in raising their profile through a video that touched the hearts of commenters across the country.
Beth: McDonald’s Trick or Eat
Beth’s choice is another festive one, the Trick or Eat campaign run by McDonald’s over the Halloween period. For this promotion, McDonalds used simple visual marketing strategies such as stretched cheese in a spooky face, which focused on advertising the discounts available on its mobile app.
The app, once downloaded, offered users the options of ‘Trick’ or ‘Eat’. The ‘Eat’ section offered a standing discount, while the ‘Trick’ section offered the chance of playing for a random discount deal.
By throwing in one McDonald’s gold card as a potential prize for every day of the promotion, the playful campaign became hugely recognisable and discussed over the Halloween period.
Annace: CPB London’s Imagine a world
Another International Women’s Day campaign that asks you to cast your mind back to March this year, when this London-based agency took to launch a campaign that used data to expose gender bias in children and adults.
Working with Perspectus Global, a data-driven market research company, CPB produced some powerful poster campaigns which ask you to imagine something, then contradicts your immediate subconscious response. For example, one says “Imagine a CEO. Is it a man?”
They also produced colouring books for children and parents to contradict the bias shown in the results. They pulled in 4.7M+ impressions, 250K+ engagement on social media and 10.28% organic engagement for the campaign overall, proving again how much issues people care about can make a great campaign.
Jessica: Removal of the Bounty from Celebrations
Here’s one that everyone was talking about not too long ago. In early November, Mars Wrigley, the brand behind Celebrations sharing tubs, announced that the Bounty was being removed from the infamous Christmas chocolate treat. Or, that’s what everyone was saying, anyway.
What Mars Wrigley was actually planning was to release a limited number of ‘No Bounty’ tubs in a limited range of Tesco stores across the country. The Bounty is still in your standard tub of Celebrations—but that doesn’t really matter. Everyone and their mother chimed in on whether they thought the Bounty had a place in Celebrations tubs, in a debate akin to the infamous Marmite love it or hate it branding.
It was such a simple, yet effective campaign to put the brand in the forefront of shopper’s minds right in the run up to Christmas buying. The campaign is one that UK PR professionals everywhere recognised as a powerful piece of earned media.
Going into 2023
This year has been a strong one for great marketing campaigns, as we were finally freed of lockdowns for the course of the year. At Faith, we’re ready to go into 2023 with our eyes peeled for the next great trend, impressive campaign, and new angles available for marketing opportunities.
For more professional insight into how we can bring a successful campaign to your business, get in touch today to find out what we can do.
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