Seldom do we find an ad that catches our attention for more than 10 seconds. And if we do, it is celebrated. We get obsessed with it and make memes, reels, and any type of content created precisely in this world. Here’s a glimpse at those ads that left a mark on the internet last year.
Marketing is a funny concept. It cannot work without an audience perspective. Though the vibe did not change much, marketing is in the process of a complete makeover (talk about Sharmaji ka beta amiright). There is one tool of marketing that is hated and loved – advertising. When I say ‘advertisement,’ your mind immediately goes ‘skip.’ Yet, brands never stop, in the hope of finding that one golden ad, which will put them at the top of the world! Or, maybe, for us to buy their products. I am not sure.
Amidst all this chaos, a few brands got their marketing campaigns bang on. They managed to do what many other brands could not do – make the viewer revisit the ad. Have a look at this list and have your say –
1) Cred - The IPL 2020 Campaign
Not a lot of us even knew Cred before IPL 2020. They were smart enough to brand the powerplay part of the innings, knowing that the viewership is highest. Then comes the star cast. Bappi Lahiri, Madhuri Dixit, Anil Kapoor, Kumar Sanu, Daler Mehndi taking auditions. For an ad. And this is the ad. Inception much?
Right when we thought things would cool down, they brought in our Indiranagar ka Gunda. They brought in Jackie Shroff doing Zumba and Kapil Dev being crazy. Now people remember Cred not as a credit card rewards company but for its ads. Talk about brand placement.
2) The Zomato Video Campaign - 2020
We human beings are simple creatures. Give us food, memes, and pop culture, and we will never forget you. And that is exactly what Zomato did, by doing a classic Marketing 101 – focus on your demographic. Last year, however, they launched a campaign that caught everyone’s eye – they asked them to make an ad for them.
It all started when the audience criticized them for their butter chicken ad because apparently, it is sacred (I don’t know, I am a vegetarian). So Zomato said ki aap hi bataiye hume kya karna hai. Incentives or not, this was a super hit campaign, as the submissions kept pouring in from all across the country!
Sigh, the things we do for butter chicken
3) Netflix - StreamFest 2020
How to know if someone has money? See if they are giving out their Netflix passwords, not taking them.
Though we all love Netflix and like to chill with it (brand integration, you’re welcome Netflix), there is always an untapped market for them that they could not reach because of their prices.
Netflix was aware of that, so they became free. Not literally, for their consumers. This masterstroke drove up their sign-ups to another level, which gave them a massive database of potential users in the future! They brought back all their favorite stars for a favor and shot small ads, and the news spread like wildfire. Talk about a successful campaign.
4) Facebook
Facebook has become that guy who is active at the beginning of the year and then vanishes after that. It is clear that in the tussle with Instagram, Facebook is losing out big time. It is like losing out to your more successful younger cousin brother. We all know that feeling.
So to revive themselves, Facebook launched a heart-warming campaign for small businesses, where they made ads about how small businesses have used Facebook and its community for their benefit. This campaign was a roaring success, and why wouldn’t it be? We Indians like sentiment for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if we had it our way.
5) WhatsApp - It’s Between You
Some ads are made to elevate the brand, and some are to do damage control. Amidst heavy criticism about user privacy on WhatsApp, They made a series of ads titled ‘It’s Between You’ to explain what ‘End to End Encryption’ means and reiterate that anyone else cannot read their information.
By using happy moments and family relations as their central theme, they crafted a few ads that explicitly show how much privacy means to them.
This, along with their decision to not go ahead with the privacy policy agreement with the user, revived their image to some extent.
https://youtu.be/75C3yYDbyBE