Best Online PR and Marketing Campaigns of 2018
Online marketing and PR campaigns can drive enormous amounts of traffic, so who did it well in 2018?
Online PR and Marketing campaigns should be fresh, topical and creative in order to get the maximum impact. 2018 was a stellar year for big brands, charities and small companies all looking to raise awareness, promote their products and drive customer engagement,
We’ve picked our favourite online PR and marketing campaigns of 2018 which demonstrate just how impactful a creative and bold idea can be.
easyJet’s ‘Amy Johnson Initiative’
The British budget airline easyJet was praised across the board for its online recruitment campaign which promoted female empowerment.
Using child actors to shoot a short film parodying the Leonardo DiCaprio film, ‘Catch Me If You Can’, the company highlighted the lack of women pilots in the industry.
Re imagining an iconic movie scene, easyJet launched its appeal for more female pilots.
Virgin Ride with Price
To celebrate LGBT Pride Month in June 2018, Virgin Trains took to social media to advertise the special rainbow livery of its new Pride Train. Sparking immediate customer interaction, some of which was not terribly supportive, the company’s responses and subsequent promotion was notably effective at establishing strong brand identity.
Virgin Trains (Twitter): What’s rainbow-tactic and goes at 125mph?
Say hello to our fabulous new Pride Train and get ready to #RideWithPride all Summer long
(The Other) John Lewis
There is no bigger war in the UK for advertising campaigns than the battle for the buzz at Christmas.
Retailer, John Lewis, has dominated the headlines in previous years but it was a clever twist of PR that saw the social media platform Twitter really turn heads with its creative online marketing.
Focusing on a Virginian man by the name John Lewis (@JohnLewis) whose Twitter feed gets clogged up each December with misaddressed tweets, the#NotARetailStore campaign really sparked a lot of traffic.
Twitter: Join the conversation… even if it’s by mistake.
Greggs Goes Undercover
Visiting an artisan food market but in ‘disguise’, the high-street bakers Greggs produced a memorable video which gained a lot of traction social media.
Entitled ‘Who is Gregory and Gregory?’ the clip shows foodies at the festival being surprised over the culinary excellence of the company’s summer range.
The Greggs ‘Who is Gregory & Gregory?’ campaign was creative and fun.
Nike: Believe in Something
The sports company’s controversial choice of spokesman for their latest campaign divided opinion, particularly in America.
Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, was famously the centre of a media storm when he took to kneeling during the pre-match national anthem. It’s not typical for corporate firms as large as Nike to use political activists in their advertising and marketing but this one seems to have paid off.
Nike’s Dream Crazy campaign went crazy on social media.
Pictured alongside the slogan, ‘Believe in Something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.’ Kaepernick has delivered something crucial to the success of modern PR campaigns; online engagement.
The BBC also reported in September 2018 that Nike’s online sales had increased 31% the weekend after the ad was launched.
Plastic (not) Fantastic
Whether it is the ownership that people in Britain seem to have over the ‘national treasure’ that is David Attenborough or whether we are all just more eco-conscious than other nations, the UK is leading the global war on plastic in our oceans.
This sea change in attitude has sparked numerous commitments in 2018 from the likes of Pret a Manger, Coca Cola and Evian all promising to use less, or more recycled, plastic.
The BBC’s Blue Planet II has been driving public opinion with the UK’s Plastics Pact signing up all the major supermarkets to commit to a series of targets on tackling this huge problem.
However, it was the international charity, Plastic Oceans, that saw the best PR campaign for the issue with this powerful video:
Plastic Ocean’s powerful video advertisement showed marine life swimming into plastic barriers to highlight the threat to our oceans.
Opace and Online Marketing
Opace is a forward thinking and creative digital agency that can support and drive customer’s ambitions to establish, grow and develop their online presence. We offer a range of services from SEO to blog content and marketing to social media. Contact us to discuss your online strategy for 2019 today.
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