Tune in to this episode of Will It Stick, with Alexis and Melissa as they break down craziest brand stunts and campaigns. In this episode, the duo takes a look at how brands reacted during COVID-19 and whether their advertising strategies were successful. With the immediate revenue loss and societal shift that the pandemic brought on, companies scrambled to decide whether to pivot the campaigns that they invested in pre-pandemic. With an uncertain future, how do you confidently go forward with increased advertising?
Join Alexis and Melissa as they take a close look at some specific campaigns and what quick shifts companies made in their advertisements to adapt and change. While COVID advertising brought out commonalities with tragic and depressing elements, some marketing proved to help companies go big during the pandemic. Alexis and Melissa play a game in guessing whether these companies failed or went big during COVID.
The conversation begins with taking a look at realtor.com‘s heartfelt poem campaign, and the follow up digital campaign. Alexis and Melissa discuss how timing is everything, and while heartfelt messages were nice at first, people seemed to quickly be over them. Learn more about how realtor.com attached a cause to their campaign that proved to help round it out.
Next, they take a look at the state of New York and their advertisement featuring Paul Rudd as a “certified young person”. This advertisement emphasized the need for wearing masks and focused on millennials. Find out why their choice of slang for the commercial was a poor attempt at humor and turned offensive quickly.
Then, they take a look at the Dove commercial and how they have worked to continue their 2004 real beauty campaign in a different way. Dove proved to be a leader in cause marketing for COVID about heroes. While “real beauty” seemed superficial given the landscape, Dove worked to make it relevant to what was going on. Did you know Dove sees themselves as the largest global provider of self esteem education? Learn about their creation of an at home resource and self-esteem program for young people, along with their campaign in partnership with the UK government on teaching proper hand washing. Dove is certainly a leader in global investing.
Next up, they take a look at SuitSupply’s campaign and how they increased the conversation about suits in a world where the hottest selling clothing category was “athleisure”. But, did they miss the mark in reading the room with this controversial “orgy-themed” ad?
The conversation draws to a close with two honorable mentions—Emily Crisps and Heinz. Learn how these brands got their names out there and how Heinz worked to embrace the puzzle fad.
Thanks for listening and don’t forget to leave us a five star review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!
Listen Now:
Resources:
Links:
Watch State of New York’s PSA with Paul Rudd here
Watch Dove’s ad here
Watch Suitsupply’s ad here
Check out the Time Magazine article here
Check out the AdAge Suitsupply article here
Read MarketingWeek’s article on Emily Crisps here.
Read AdAge’s Heinz Ketchup article here.
Follow Will It Stick on Instagram and check out our website.