Our Favourite Marketing Campaigns of the Decade

The decade that gave us Instagram, Love Island, a sudden rise in babies called Khaleesi and a sudden drop in babies called Alexa has come to an end. So, we’re taking a look back at some of our favourite marketing campaigns and changes in tech that have changed the digital landscape.

We asked the Kanuka Digital team to give us their thoughts on the most memorable campaigns from the last decade, which has resulted in a very eclectic mix.

Want to share your favourite marketing campaigns of the last decade? Tweet us @kanukadigital

Greggs vegan sausage roll from Phil

January 2019 saw the rollout of the Greggs vegan sausage roll.

Being a fan of sausage rolls and Apple products, their launch campaign wins my top spot. Their advert parodied an Apple product launch, running through the specifications of the “next-generation sausage roll technology”.

To support the campaign, Greggs sent samples to press and social media influencers boxed in sleek iPhone-esque packaging. As a result, the stunt generated significant viral reach.

The vegan sausage roll became the fastest-selling new product for Greggs over the past five years.

With their chief executive recently adopting a vegan lifestyle, I’m looking forward to more vegan-friendly treats from Greggs.

Project 84, CALM from Callie

CALM, a mental health charity, launched an iconic guerrilla marketing campaign in 2018 which raised the issue of male suicide. Overnight, a collection of 84 sculptures were placed on ITV’s Southbank building, each representing the number of men that take their lives on a weekly basis in the UK. Yes. Just the UK.

Although a relatively simple, small budget campaign, this stunt encouraged people to talk about male suicide. The campaign had an earned media reach of 2.1 billion, 170 million impressions on Twitter and a 34% increase in responses to CALM’s helpline.

TV presenter Holly Willoughby said: “I’ve never seen anything like it in all the years we’ve been here at the tower… to see those statues on the top of the building and everybody stopping and just looking up to take a moment.”

Spotify’s UGC Campaigns from Chris

In just over 10 years Spotify has completely revolutionised the music industry taking it from the brink of collapse from piracy to giving us access to just about any music recording at the tap of a button.

With over 200 million active users accessing the platform each month (nearly four times as much as Apple Music, its nearest competitor), there’s a lot of data captured that gives us great insight into our music consumption habits.

Rather than sit on this data, Spotify have almost started a new Christmas tradition of their own. They have provided us with a review of our listening activity throughout the year in their ‘Wrapped’ campaigns.

By teaming up online campaigns and outdoor marketing in a relatable tone of voice that resonates with their user base, Spotify are able to take big data and our love of nostalgia and push forward a strong sense of sentiment and start conversations about the music we love.

Christian Dior & Google Search Console from Lee

This is more of a general favourite than a specific one. I like how fragrance adverts appear to have a lot of money spent on them (or maybe not). But they always capture my attention as they stand out and ooze premium quality.

Since 2018, Google has revamped its Google Search Console to make it more user-friendly and provide users with more meaningful data. This is most welcome by us and by our clients.

Aldi ‘Like Brands’ featuring Graham Taylor (2014)

In 2014, Aldi hired the great former England football manager Graham Taylor to inject some World Cup magic into its long-running ‘Like Brands’ campaign.

The 20 second TV ad sees Taylor sitting in his armchair in front of the TV watching a match whilst comparing a leading cider brand to Aldi’s own brand equivalent. A well-timed ‘furniture malfunction’ leads Taylor to mutter the immortal line ‘Do I not like that’ (if you know, you know).

You can watch it here.

Why we liked it?

The World Cup captivates the attention of the great British public like no other event. It’s a time when even non-football fans get swept up in the buzz of it all. As we witnessed in the glorious World Cup summer of 2018.

Aldi tapped into this perfectly, creating a real stand out commercial with a thread of great humour. They did this by using a very popular personality from the world of football. It’s simple but it’s funny. And funny gets remembered.

The cider was decent too. Just a shame about the football.

Cadbury X Age UK Donate Your Words

One of my favourite marketing campaigns of the decade is actually one from just a few months ago. Cadbury and Age UK joined forces in September 2019 to take on the fight against loneliness in the elderly.

Around 1.4 million older people say that struggle with loneliness and 225,000 often go a whole week without speaking to anyone.

Age UK.

To help in the fight against loneliness, Cadbury’s delivered a series of emotive adverts designed to raise awareness of the loneliness crisis in the older population and also removed all words from their iconic Dairy Milk bar’s packaging. The idea was to encourage the public to “donate their words” to the elderly who are often deprived of conversation.

The campaign went viral and encouraged people to discuss the issues surrounding loneliness. As a result, Cadbury’s brand health metrics also saw an increase. YouGov showed that the awareness of Cadbury’s adverts increased by 11% among the over 65s and the likelihood of a customer purchasing from the brand increased by 4.6 points.