In a bid to prove our time online has been productive (please don’t @ us, iPhone Screen Report), we thought we’d round up 2022 with the best social media campaigns to remember …
On Valentine’s day, the eco-friendly and B-corp cleaning brand Wilton London invited the public to ‘talk dirty’ and tweet in their love notes. Wilton London then showcased the results on billboards across the city.
Relying on UGC with the tweets, we think this is a great example of how a smaller or challenger brand can approach further-reaching campaigns, bringing social media and OOH together during a key consumer holiday. And we like that while having some fun, Wilton stays relevant to the brand’s offering with the campaign name complementing their very own blog series. Read the love notes here.
Aldi taught the big brands how to work smarter, not harder. When they clocked off over the May bank holiday, Aldi let its competitors do the talking for them. Competitors during the holidays tend to focus their efforts on brand promotions and offers during the holidays when customers are trading up for occasions. So Aldi needed to stand out over the noise. Instead, they put a call out on their famous Twitter account for any of the big brands to take over for the day – and over 40 got in on the action, from Specsavers to Mecca bingo and Aldi’s top supermarket competitors in between.
Without spending a penny, Aldi ended the week with 5.1m impressions and 140,000 engagements. Such a clever campaign from Aldi, we love how they leverage their competitor’s share of voice to boost their own. Find out more from Aldi here.
If you haven’t been following Duolingo’s on socials this year, then do it now! In particular we’ve really been enjoying and admiring their TikTok strategy this year. The brand is firmly on the pulse of trends and pop culture dominating socials. And it’s their responsiveness to this that makes their account such a hit. There is little or no relation between the TikToks they put out and the brand offering. So instead of selling this, the strategy is all about brand building and boosting brand love by serving its audiences the kind of funny content it wants to see. And apparently that’s the owl mascot Duo sharing their obsession with pop-princess Dua Lipa.
Indeed, a GWI report found TikTok users are 38% more likely to say they want brands to be funny, compared to other social media users. And the volume of UGC here that the brand has inspired, is testament to how well they’ve met that demand. People have been turning themselves into the Duolingo owl mascot, mimicking the characters and even showing themselves sneaking lessons into their nights out so as not to lose their streaks. That’s true brand love. Check out Duo on TikTok here.
The humanitarian organisation, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, developed a social-first awareness and perception changing campaign. The aim was to break through the fatigue around the decade long war in Syria and inspire empathy from audiences.
We were inspired by how the campaign shifts the tired narrative away from refugees being depicted as helpless victims. Instead, the refugees are given agency by getting four Syrians to tell their story in their own words, about how they’re taking back their lives with the help of the charity.
The storytellers were paired with international creators and influencers who shared their individual passions, to create a series of paid social videos that were played out across Europe. Learn more about IFRC’s campaign here.
Ok busted, this one’s one of ours! But we just had to share because the results are AMAZING. The campaign encourages streamers and gamers to #StreamForMind across social media. Putting Mind’s new brand at the heart of the fundraising product, it has fighting spirit at the core; inspiring audiences to join the fight for mental health in their own way. In the first month, the campaign achieved 3.5m impressions online, resulting in a 90% increase in signups year-on-year. Read more about #StreamForMind here.
We’ve mentioned it before in another insight piece, but we just can’t do a round up of social media campaigns without bringing it up again. It’s THAT good. In September, Tesco put out their first post on TikTok, inviting Clubcard users to audition to become the voice of their self-checkout across the country. And to say the content took the platform by storm is an understatement, generating a staggering 14 million TikTok views. The competition used the duet feature in the app, asking users to repeat the checkout prompts in their best accents to battle it out as the voice and also win 10,000 in clubcard points.
The viral stunt is a great way to boost brand loyalty in a crowded marketplace. What Tesco have done particularly well here is to tailor the content to the platform. This feels like a TikTok campaign. It makes the most of the app’s features and the ways audiences organically use it. And so Tesco’s own cultural internet moment is born. In case you haven’t heard it, listen to the winning voice here.
With a constantly evolving social media landscape (thanks Elon Musk), emerging channels and converging platforms, we’re interested to see how brands and charities will embrace social in 2023. And with our fingers on the pulse, we’re looking for clients who dare to do things differently to engage their audiences and provoke conversation. Speak to our team if you’ve got a social brief you need support with! Drop us a line at hello@raw.london.
