Earlier in the year, I posted about how brilliant I thought the company, Innocent, present their reactive marketing campaigns when they see certain top trends, gaffes and news stories. They use memes, clever play on words and what’s happened to promote their products.
In the last few months, top trends and news has been overshadowed by Brexit and the fella with the messy hair, yawn. Yet, I’ve enjoyed seeing so many brands jump on the reactive marketing bandwagon. It often brings a light note to brands that take on the challenge. Reactive marketing campaigns show off their sense of humour and allow consumers to relate to them.
I love this type of marketing! Brands of any size can be creative in the way they interpret trends and what’s going on in the world. In doing so, it allows your business to benefit from brand awareness. Consumers can’t resist great humour and will more likely engage with this type of content.
Before I get on to the best of 2019, I want to go back to 2018 to a campaign that was awesome!
KFC
Amidst all the chaos of the chicken shortage at KFC, the fast-food giant still managed to maintain their humour rather than running around like headless chickens.
Excuse the pun ?
Instead, they came up with a brilliant take on their branding on the KFC bucket, pushing the boundaries to make their point.
It didn’t stop the complaints, but it allowed consumers to relate to the brand. They understood that mistakes do happen.
Read on to find out, in my opinion, what the best reactive campaigns have been from 2019.
MARMITE
The Brexit and the general election-related campaigns. It’s been such a large part of 2019; I can’t not mention it. And thankfully, these posts don’t take sides – phew!
The first one is Marmite, who are very good at using simplistic marketing to get their brand across, which they’ve managed again with this one. It uses its famous ‘love it or hate it’ slogan along with the controversial Brexit decisions – Hard Brexit, Soft Brexit and No Brexit – and changes it to relate to their product. The tagline gives it a light-hearted feel of mocking politics. Whilst sticking with their normal issue of dividing the nation with their products unique taste.
BURGER KING
Next up is Burger King. Although it caused controversy, I like it!
It could be interpreted in many ways; however, the campaign was a reaction to the Vote Leave’s Brexit battle bus. The Vote Leave campaign had claimed in the 2016 Brexit Campaign, that the £350 million that is given to the EU could be spent on the NHS. It later came to light that the message was completely false. The advert read ‘Another whopper on the side of a bus. Must be an election’ accompanied by a picture of Burger King’s famous Whopper burger. The message is ironic. The claim that the Vote Leave campaign made could be seen as a whopper or perhaps they might be speaking about Mr Johnson. Who knows?
Last but not least.
It’s……………………. Rebekah Vardy vs Coleen Rooney Innocent Smoothie style. #wagathachristie
If you’ve not heard about this one, then where have you been?? In short, Coleen had a mole in her private Instagram account that was leaking fake stories to the press. She did some detective work and figured out it was… Rebekah Vardy account! Coleen’s tweet went viral and in came the hilarious replies and memes of the situation. Innocent, with their quick thinking, were one of the first brands to take this as an opportunity to drive engagement to their brand-new product. Well done Innocent, keep up the good work!
Other brands jumped at the opportunity to react via marketing e.g. Netflix, BBC One, and someone even got in all the VAR controversy.
Other good reactive marketing campaigns over 2019 include the Nando’s take on Spotify Wrapped, brands including Burger King and Pepsi mocking the piece of ‘art’ that sold for $120,000, BoohooMAN cashing in on the popularity of Alex from Glastonbury’s performance with Dave and LEGO’s take on Elon Musk’s ‘bulletproof’ truck.
Which reactive marketing campaigns did you love in 2019?