Three Marketing Campaigns That Went Viral for All the Right Reasons

The main reasons all of our favourite marketing campaigns went viral was because they were 1) clever 2) timely and 3) opportunistic. Just like the Italians swear by tomatoes, basil and pasta, and the Thai believe that the golden three ingredients are galangal, lemongrass and kaffir lime, we believe that the best marketing campaigns are made of wit, good timing, and great opportunities. These campaigns show us how we can benefit from taking risks and thinking more creatively. We’ve rounded up three of some of our favourite perfectly timed, clever marketing campaigns.

Dunkin’ Donuts Dress

In February 2015, we almost witnessed the internet break as a girl posted a photo of a dress and asked if it was blue and black or white and gold. People gave their opinion across multiple social media channels and on national radio to argue why they believed the dress was a certain colour.

Dunkin’ Donuts took advantage of ‘the dress’ and its fame and created a doughnut with blue and black icing and another with white and gold icing to depict the dress. They said that it “doesn’t matter if it’s blue/black or white/gold, they still taste delicious. #thedress”. For the record, we firmly believe that it’s blue and black.

#LoveWins

When marriage rights for all became legal in all 50 US states, millions of people rushed to social media to show their support with the hashtag #LoveWins. Facebook cleverly took advantage of this moment by allowing people to put a multi-coloured filter on their profile picture so people could explicitly show their support for marriage rights for all.

Google also jumped on this bandwagon by creating a rainbow homepage. The Visa campaign also went viral with the caption “Love. Accepted everywhere.” These weren’t the only companies that got involved either, you just need to Google ‘Love Wins’ to see just how many brands got involved in this opportunity to support this fantastic cause.

Oreo’s Dunking in the Dark

In a quick-thinking stunt, Oreo’s social media team leapt at the opportunity to create a clever advert when the power in the Superdrome (where the Super Bowl was hosted in 2013) went out for 34 minutes. Their team tweeted “Power out? No problem” with a softly-lit image of a lone Oreo with the caption “You can still dunk in the dark”. Almost immediately, the tweet gained nearly 20,000 retweets and over 20,000 likes on Facebook due to their quick and clever thinking.

Those are three of our favourite clever, opportunistic marketing campaigns that gave us a good giggle. After all, if you can generate emotion in your audience, that often generates a share! So next time you spot a viral trend, don’t be afraid to get your brand involved in it and share away.