Over the past ten years Facebook has transformed from a potential business opportunity to a staple part of every online marketer’s strategy. Naturally some brands are doing it better than others so we’ve taken a look at 10 of the most successful, engaging, creative or downright funny campaigns to grace the social network over the past decade. In no particular order, here are our top 10.
Burger King’s Sacrifice Campaign
Probably the most controversial of the list, Burger King’s 2009 Whopper sacrifice campaign encouraged fans to “sacrifice” 10 of their friends in order to gain coupons that allowed them a free burger. The Burger King app then notified those unlucky enough to be defriended that they had been swapped for free food. Needless to say Facebook wasn’t impressed and the app was dropped. Not before 234,000 friends had been sacrificed though.
Ford’s Big Reveal
Ford shocked people in 2011 by opting out of the traditional route of unveiling their new model at an auto show in favour of social media. Broadcast live on Facebook, 75,000 fans logged on to watch the big unveiling, and despite being a single day event, the campaign went viral, gathering momentum that saw it talked about for weeks to come.
Heinz Beans Personality App
Often taking to social media around its product launches, Heinz launched a Facebook app that told people what kind of bean they had grown up to become. Of those who took part and shared the app, 5 winners were picked every hour and sent a personalised bean. The light-hearted campaign ran for 2 weeks, reaching 10.8 million people on Facebook and showing off the brand’s quirky side.
Nike at the Olympics
In a typical Nike attempt to steal the limelight from its competitors, the American sports brand made outperforming official sponsor Adidas its mission of 2012 with its #findgreatness campaign. Celebrating everyday athletes, Nike managed to attract 166,718 new Facebook fans during the games, approximately double the amount of Adidas at 80,761. There were also found to be more than 16,000 tweets associating Nike with the word Olympic between 27th July and 22nd August compared to Adidas’ 9,295.
Barack Obama Election
The use of social media during Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign was well documented but the stats speak for themselves- 3,000,000 Facebook supporters in comparison to McCain’s 600,000 (not to mention more than 40 times the amount of YouTube subscribers).
Papa John’s Specialty Pizza Challenge
In a campaign that called directly to its fans’ tastebuds, Papa John’s challenged people to create a new pizza, with the winner granted the opportunity to make it become a reality (as well as a share of the profits not to mention free pizza for life!). The overwhelming response saw over 12,000 entries.
VitaminWater
The brand doubled up its Facebook page as its official website (although with more success than the 2009 skittles campaign which ended in a tyrant of abuse) with a campaign that allowed people to create their own flavour of Glaceau Vitaminwater. As well as unprecedented levels of engagement the campaign also went a long way to portraying the company in a creative and interesting way.
Breast Cancer Awareness
In a campaign that had men baffled for weeks on end, women up and down the country took to their Facebook accounts to claim that they liked it on the bedroom floor, kitchen worktop, passenger seat of their car etc. They were actually referring to where they put their handbag down but the story made national news and served to raise the profile of breast cancer awareness.
Coke Zero at Christmas
The most recent campaign of the 10, Coke Zero combined two popular trends- social media and Christmas jumpers. Using the Online Sweater Generator, people could customise their jumpers using an abundance of colours, knitted images and template backgrounds. Even better, these were displayed in a gallery on the microsite where other users could judge their favourites.
Ikea’s Photo-tagging Campaign
In 2009, Ikea used photo-tagging to promote the opening of its new store in Malmo. Over a span of 2 weeks, the Swedish flat-pack furniture geniuses posted 12 photos of catalogue style showrooms inviting fans to tag the items. The first Facebook user to add their name to a piece of furniture won that particular item. Creative, simple and cost effective, the campaign won a Gold Cyber Lion award.
By Ben Austin, CEO at Absolute Digital Media.
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