The best digital marketing campaigns of 2017

We’re pretty proud of our work at Engage, but every so often a campaign comes along that gives us a ‘damn, wish we’d made that’ moment. As digital marketing moves at an increasingly fast pace, we’re always interested to see how brands are using the newest developments in the industry to improve their customer experience and create big buzz. These were a few of our favourite campaigns from 2017…

As augmented reality starts to creep into the mainstream, it’s interesting to see how brands are maturing from fun gimmicks towards using it as a genuinely useful buying tool for their customers. In 2017 Ikea released their new ‘Place’ app, which allows users to drop 3D models of furniture items into their living space. Not only does it gamify the shopping experience in what feels like a throwback to The Sims, it’s a great example of a brand identifying and solving customer problems and could make disastrous measuring errors a thing of the past.

2017 has been a year of divisive politics, and many brands have attempted to create some positive sentiment by joining the conversation…with varying success. Where Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner ad got it so wrong, Heineken hit the right note with a series of interviews pairing people with opposing political views, encouraging them to get to know each other before revealing their beliefs and inviting them to stay and have a discussion over a beer. Every pair chose to stay, and Heineken was praised for promoting unity and understanding. The advert earned widespread media coverage and created a buzz on social media, with the YouTube video racking up 14 million views.

Ted Baker are a pretty established name in the world of quirky marketing campaigns, and this year they targeted the younger demographic with a sitcom-esque video series on Instagram. The ‘episodes’ played over 8 days on Instagram Stories, and were supported by Instagram posts where fans were encouraged to take part in the gossip for the chance to win prizes. The Instagram campaign was accompanied by a 360° shoppable film hosted on the Ted Baker website where viewers could purchase the looks featured in the video and explore the Baker universe to unlock hidden content.

Game of Thrones kicked off their Season 7 marketing efforts in sensational style, when they managed to convince 3.1 million people to spend an hour literally watching ice melt to find out the release date for the new series. Viewers could comment ‘FIRE’ in the comments to activate flamethrowers that would melt the ice faster, and despite the feed cutting out twice it successfully fed the fan frenzy. They followed this up with a Twitter campaign where fans could tweet emojis to unlock exclusive character posters.

Spotify have gained themselves a reputation for hitting the mark with their data-driven content campaigns, and their 2017 Wrapped campaign definitely brought productivity grinding to a halt in the Engage office as we all dared to share our listening stats. The slick microsite quizzes you on how well you know your own listening habits, and puts together two personalised playlists for you to see the year out with; your top 100 songs from the year, and 100 new songs based on your taste.