In today’s media sat­u­rat­ed land­scape, the abil­i­ty to pro­duce cam­paigns that are mem­o­rable is a defin­ing qual­i­ty for brands. Mem­o­rable cam­paigns have endur­ing reach, and pro­mote a sense of val­ues that fuel sus­tained brand loy­al­ty and aware­ness. So, just as brands and mar­keters are ready­ing up their Christ­mas and hol­i­day mar­ket­ing cam­paigns, which are a dif­fer­ent ket­tle of fish alto­geth­er, Inked takes a look at the most mem­o­rable cam­paigns of 2015, and why they were so impact­ful amongst con­sumers.

From the out­set, 2015 promised to be a diverse and media-rich mar­ket­ing year. Key mar­ket­ing chan­nels and dis­ci­plines were iden­ti­fied as a base to be man­aged and built upon — influ­encer mar­ket­ing for exam­ple, but also email and big data imple­men­ta­tion were marked out for renewed focus, as well as met­rics such as cus­tomer life­time val­ue.

While the mar­ket­ing year is far from over (the Christ­mas and hol­i­day mar­ket­ing cam­paigns of the next few months will like­ly deserve cov­er­age of their own) so we’ve col­lect­ed some of the years most mem­o­rable cam­paigns – with mem­o­ra­bil­i­ty in this respect loose­ly defined by fac­tors such as longevi­ty, impact, and suc­cess.

The Most Memorable Campaigns of 2015

1. Always #LikeAGirl — Unstoppable

Always’ orig­i­nal #LikeA­Girl cam­paign first rolled out in July 2014, so it isn’t strict­ly a cam­paign from 2015. How­ev­er on the strength of the orig­i­nal con­tents run­away suc­cess, the brand rehashed the #LikeA­Girl cam­paign with “Unstop­pable”, which reju­ve­nat­ed the con­cept in July of this year.

With 30 mil­lion+ views at the time of writ­ing, Unstop­pable shows that the poten­cy of a social advo­ca­cy cam­paign such as #LikeA­Girl can hold endur­ing appeal. There is a tremen­dous matu­ri­ty for a brand to align with key social caus­es of today and to do so with con­tent which can be ampli­fied so well.

Why it was mem­o­rable: With #LikeA­Girl, Always have suc­cinct­ly posi­tioned their brand around a cause and social advo­ca­cy mes­sage that suits them per­fect­ly, ignit­ing audi­ences across plat­forms and social media chan­nels. It shows how a great cam­paign with strong dig­i­tal pen­e­tra­tion can remain rel­e­vant for months and even years.

2. Vanity Fair’s Caitlyn Jenner Cover

LGBT issues were one of the break­through top­ics of 2015, and Jen­ner’s Van­i­ty Fair cov­er encap­su­lat­ed a water­shed moment. As report­ed by Lisa Lacy, “accord­ing to Bob Witeck, pres­i­dent of PR and mar­ket­ing firm Witeck Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, the trans­gen­der pop­u­la­tion has always been a chal­lenge in main­stream media in part because there are so few exam­ples.”

Mar­keters have a respon­si­bil­i­ty pro­vide a fair rep­re­sen­ta­tion of soci­ety as they cre­ate main­stream media, eth­i­cal­ly, but also in order not to alien­ate niche audi­ences. And whilst not strict­ly a cam­paign, Cait­lyn Jen­ner’s cov­er shoot rep­re­sents a move towards open con­ver­sa­tion about LGBT issues from brands and pub­lish­ers alike in the wake of June’s Supreme Court rul­ing.

Why it was mem­o­rable: With brands includ­ing JELL‑O, Jet­Blue, Ben & Jer­ry’s, Chee­rios, Tiffany, and Wells Far­go, pro­duc­ing LGBT themed con­tent, 2015 has been a year in which brands have endeav­ored to have a voice on top­i­cal issues and debate, and to a large extent, have suc­ceed­ed

3. GoPro — Digda the Skateboarding Cat

The incred­i­ble suc­cess of GoPro’s mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy has been cov­ered before (and again here), so we won’t dwell on this too long.

Yes, this is a skate­board­ing cat… but it’s also a gen­uine­ly authen­tic piece of con­tent that orig­i­nat­ed organ­i­cal­ly via the com­mu­ni­ty of GoPro users all over the world – a far cry from any big-bud­get agency brief and ad cam­paign.

How­ev­er, what makes GoPro so deserv­ing of yet anoth­er men­tion here is the fact that their mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy utilis­es user-gen­er­at­ed con­tent so per­fect­ly, and that at any moment, any one of these videos can begin to go viral on a major video shar­ing plat­form.

This one debuted just last week and is already being wide­ly viewed:

In encour­ag­ing and enabling a com­mu­ni­ty of users and advo­cates to share their own incred­i­ble con­tent, GoPro have sim­ply bro­ken the mould. They com­mand a piece of the online video mar­ket that in all like­li­hood can con­tin­ue to win views and impres­sions, indef­i­nite­ly. And with 2015 already a great year for the brand, there’s no rea­son why 2016 can’t be even bet­ter.

Why it was mem­o­rable: Authen­tic, engag­ing, often down­right impres­sive. Con­sum­ing GoPro’s con­tent is wide­ly shared and report­ed on, and is fast becom­ing a nat­ur­al part of the lives of all con­sumers of dig­i­tal media.

4. Budweiser USA #BestBuds

Bud­weis­er’s #Best­Buds cam­paign, whose flag­ship video pre­miered at Super Bowl 2015 was the stand­out cam­paign from this year’s half-time spon­sors. Rank­ing at #1 with 1,907,288 shares on Face­book, Twit­ter, and blog the first 30 days after the game, the cam­paign proved that a lit­tle melo­dra­ma, and a cute pup­py can go a long, long way.

In fair­ness to Bud­weis­er, the ad did­n’t sole­ly rely on the “aww” fac­tor of a sin­gle ram­bunc­tious labrador pup­py. The oth­er star of the video was a hand­some Clydes­dale horse, a breed with who the Anheuser-Busch Brew­ing Com­pa­ny have a long estab­lished his­to­ry. The video also paint­ed an idyl­lic pic­ture of Amer­i­can coun­try­side which is con­sis­tent for the brand.

Why it was mem­o­rable: The stand­out cam­paign at this year’s Super Bowl, the cam­paign had cov­er­age from every pos­si­ble angle. Is a pup­py all it takes? Are we so eas­i­ly swayed by cute ani­mals? If the cam­paign had more longevi­ty, it would have been even high­er in our list.

5. Netflix — Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, Narcos

Net­flix have used 2015 to build fur­ther on their brand, and are becom­ing one of the pre­mier tech­nol­o­gy brands of today. Like GoPro they have an advan­tage in that their core prod­uct revolves around the pro­vi­sion of great con­tent, and this direct­ly fuels their cam­paigns.

This year, the brand built upon exclu­sive and proven prop­er­ties, such as “Orange is the New Black”, and “House of Cards”, as well as new endeav­ors such as “Nar­cos”.

Net­flix’s mar­ket­ing propo­si­tion is essen­tial­ly based around teasers and trail­ers of their exclu­sive con­tent, and the (large­ly) dig­i­tal organ­i­cal­ly dri­ven press cov­er­age. How­ev­er, what real­ly makes their con­tent mem­o­rable is the way in which their com­pa­ny approach­es and bud­gets for pro­duc­tions.

Take Nar­cos as an exam­ple, just as it was announced in 2013 that House of Cards was pret­ty much guar­an­teed to be a suc­cess amongst audi­ence, hav­ing been fueled by big data insights col­lect­ed from Net­flix’s sub­scribers, “Nar­cos” was com­mis­sioned part­ly due to the pop­u­lar­i­ty of 30 for 30 doc­u­men­tary “The Two Esco­bars”. The suc­cess of the doc­u­men­tary on the stream­ing plat­form was a clear indi­ca­tion of a con­sumer desire, and Net­flix deliv­ered on that.

Why it was mem­o­rable: Because that’s what we want­ed (appar­ent­ly). Net­flix are con­tin­u­ing to define what mod­ern sto­ry­telling and home enter­tain­ment are all about. Film­mak­ing used to exist as an indus­try of it’s own, but the lines are blur­ring, and the approach con­tent pro­duc­ers are tak­ing is heav­i­ly inter­linked with dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing prin­ci­ples around user behav­iour and data.

6. Domino’s #EasyOrder Pizza Emojis

Domi­no’s bold announce­ment that con­sumers would be able to order piz­za with a sim­ple emo­ji tweet was a pow­er­ful state­ment about the brand’s com­mit­ment to sim­pli­fi­ca­tion of the order­ing process. With #Easy­Order, the brand posi­tioned them­selves amongst the braver fast food deliv­ery ser­vices with a stake in dig­i­tal inno­va­tion (a com­pet­i­tive space with the likes of Arby’s, Taco Bell, and Quiznos also mak­ing dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing head­lines this year).

Why it was mem­o­rable: The cam­paign was the bold­est exam­ple out of a num­ber of brands who cap­i­tal­ized on the oppor­tu­ni­ty to mar­ket around emo­jis. If these lit­tle sym­bols rep­re­sent the zeit­geist of our times, then Domi­no’s have placed an invalu­able stake on what could one day become valu­able emo­ji real estate, and even if not, they showed they are a brand who are ready to cap­i­tal­ize on dig­i­tal oppor­tu­ni­ties when and if they arrive.

7. Nordstrom Goes ‘Big’ For Anniversary Sale

We high­light­ed Nord­strom at the begin­ning of this year as one of the most inno­v­a­tive brands in terms of the way they uti­lize inte­grat­ed tech­nol­o­gy to unite busi­ness objec­tives, and this is a con­cept that fuels some of their pow­er­ful and inte­grat­ed dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing cam­paigns.

Ear­li­er this year, they cre­at­ed a gigan­tic instal­la­tion on the top of their flag­ship store, which was used to cre­ate a sin­gle Insta­gram post to announce their annu­al anniver­sary sale.

The com­pa­ny also used emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms such as Periscope to broad­cast the cre­ation of the huge piece, ensur­ing the event was well placed to reach audi­ences across dig­i­tal chan­nels.

Why it was mem­o­rable: The per­ceived ease with which Nord­strom is able to con­sis­tent­ly oust their com­pe­ti­tion by cre­at­ing unique dig­i­tal­ly-savvy con­tent is fast posi­tion­ing the brand as one of the most mod­ern, inno­v­a­tive, and pop­u­lar depart­ment stores among young audi­ences and dig­i­tal natives.

8. Disney Characters Surprise Shoppers

With 4.7+ mil­lion views (at time of writ­ing), Dis­ney’s stunt uti­lizes the pow­er of a well-coor­di­nat­ed offline stunt that engages mem­bers of the pub­lic, and ampli­fies that expe­ri­ence across dig­i­tal chan­nels.

Fol­low­ing on from the suc­cess of huge­ly pop­u­lar cam­paigns such as West­Jet’s Christ­mas Mir­a­cle, the video shows how this kind of mar­ket­ing radi­ates qual­i­ties of authen­tic­i­ty and pos­i­tive feel­ings which enhance audi­ence per­cep­tions of a brand.

Why it was mem­o­rable: The video shows how the won­der of a well-coor­di­nat­ed offline stunt can trav­el much fur­ther than the peo­ple you amaze, with the ampli­fi­ca­tion of offline chan­nels.

9. Burberry’s Periscope Runways

In recent years, Burber­ry’s dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion has been well cov­ered. In many respect they are one of the fore­most brands in a indus­try which has whole­heart­ed­ly embraced the poten­tial and oppor­tu­ni­ty of dig­i­tal and tech­nol­o­gy. As report­ed on per­co­late, fash­ion brands have real­ized that “it’s cru­cial to inte­grate tech­nol­o­gy into every cus­tomer touch­point, both online and offline”.

Burber­ry’s Periscope run­ways used the plat­form to cre­ate a vis­cer­al expe­ri­ence for audi­ences, that essen­tial­ly brought their flag­ship con­tent exhi­bi­tion (tra­di­tion­al­ly some­what of an exclu­sive event) to all. The move, which was also com­ple­ment­ed by activ­i­ties on rel­e­vant plat­forms such as snapchat, deliv­ered a record num­ber of impres­sions, top­ping 100 mil­lion and sub­se­quent­ly “the best [results] we’d ever had in terms of dig­i­tal engage­ment” accord­ing to Burber­ry CFO Car­ol Fair­weath­er.

Why it was mem­o­rable: The cam­paign exhib­it­ed the per­fect mar­riage between dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy and an expe­ri­en­tial and exclu­sive brand expe­ri­ence. The result­ing num­ber of impres­sions and lev­el of dig­i­tal engage­ment sim­ple speak for them­selves.

10. Microsoft #CollectiveProject — “Robert Downey Jr. Delivers a Real Bionic Arm”

Last but cer­tain­ly not least, Microsoft­’s #Col­lec­tive­Pro­ject is a fan­tas­tic exam­ple of a brand who are bring­ing social cor­po­rate respon­si­bil­i­ty to life, and this video fea­tur­ing “Iron Man” Robert Downey Jr. shows how this can be trans­lat­ed into a impact­ful mar­ket­ing func­tion.

Microsoft­’s com­mit­ment to the #Col­lec­tive­Pro­ject, a char­i­ta­ble cause revolv­ing around gen­uine tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion, is a fea­ture of the world’s most advanced tech brands, but this cam­paign is an exam­ple of how that can gen­er­ate pos­i­tive sen­ti­ment amongst wide audi­ences by har­ness­ing the pow­er of emo­tion­al sto­ry­telling.

Why is was mem­o­rable: Microsoft­’s #Col­lec­tive­Pro­ject demon­strate a high­ly mature kind of mar­ket­ing which is based around char­i­ty, and an authen­tic com­mit­ment to cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty. The pop­u­lar­i­ty of this video shows how that kind of com­mit­ment can be high­ly endear­ing to audi­ences.

Final Thoughts

This is by no means a defin­i­tive list of the year’s best cam­paigns, but it is a selec­tion of some of the most mem­o­rable.

What’s inter­est­ing is how many of the brands are high­ly rec­og­niz­able in that they are the same ones that con­sis­tent­ly per­form well with their dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing cam­paigns. Nord­strom, GoPro, and Burber­ry, for exam­ple, are well known to be some of the lead­ing dig­i­tal inno­va­tors in their respec­tive indus­tries.

It shows that only brands that are set up to be dig­i­tal­ly-savvy on all fronts, able to exhib­it a sense of authen­tic­i­ty and respon­sive­ness in the cre­ation of their cam­paigns, have a clear advan­tage, and are able to gen­er­ate tru­ly mem­o­rable cam­paigns.