Marketing Campaigns for Brands – with Examples

A set of Case Studies for the many types of Marketing Campaigns available for content marketers.

This set of case studies outlines the different types of Marketing campaigns used by marketers and brands, and provides an example of each type of campaign.

Brand Awareness Campaign Example

Case Study: TalkTalk

One example of a Brand Awareness campaign is TalkTalk’s use of Brand Ambassadors – representatives of the brand, stationed in the local High Street to discuss the brand and their services with members of the public.

By discussing the brand’s services in person, the representatives can compare their offer with other brands on a case-by-case, customised basis, answer questions and receive feedback in real-time, and use their powers of persuasion and charisma to provide a positive representation of a brand.

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Rebranding Campaign Example

Case Study: Dunkin’ (formerly Dunkin’ Donuts)

“‘Our Friends Call Us Dunkin'” was just one of the slogans for Dunkin’s rebranding campaign in 2018. After deciding to focus on their coffee products and fast food, instead of being solely associated with sugary donuts, Dunkin’ dropped the donuts from their name and logo and embraced the name that Americans would usually refer to them with anyway. This refreshed the classic brand in the minds of US consumers and was received positively online.

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Public Relations (PR) Campaign Example

Case Study: Barbie (Mattel)

Until recently, the name ‘Barbie’ has brought to mind a plastic, fashion-obsessed blonde bombshell with pale skin and a near-impossible waistline. But with the spread of movements focusing on, for example, body positivity and POC representation, toy company Mattel responded to the changing sentiments of ‘beauty’ and the rise of feminism in the mainstream by updating Barbie’s look and her career.

After years of careers in fields relating to Animal Care, Beauty, and Childcare, Mattel approached the public and asked, “What career should Barbie pursue next?”, asking consumers to choose from an architect, computer engineer, environmentalist, news anchor, or surgeon in an online poll. This, in combination with efforts to provide diversity in the Barbie line of dolls – with hijab-wearing dolls, dolls with the skin condition “vitiligo”, and a doll that uses a wheelchair to name a few examples – has elevated the Mattel brand to meet modern, feminist ideals, and inspired a more positive reputation in the minds of consumers.

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Product Launch Campaign Example

Case Study: RobinHood

Stock-trading app RobinHood built hype and generated users before their app had fully launched by taking advantage of an ‘early access strategy. When a user signed up, they were placed on a year-long waiting list, but could jump ahead in the queue by referring friends and family to the app. This campaign that turned referral marketing into a challenge worked so well that their app had over a million opt-ins on the first day of its launch!

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Influencer Marketing Example

Case Study: NordVPN

NordVPN has become somewhat infamous within YouTube’s community for the frequency with which their brand is mentioned by creators and influencers in videos, following sponsorship offers.

One such influencer (or group of influencers), that I am personally familiar with, is the cast of the Dungeons and Dragons podcast “Critical Role”. The whole cast are actors and/or voice actors, and NordVPN takes full advantage of this by allowing them the freedom to create their own skits and sketches to advertise Nord’s products – simply providing them with a paragraph of copy for the cast to include within their script. In return, the show’s fans get talking about the wacky sketch, and the brand’s name becomes a part of the show.

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Email Marketing Example

Case Study: Cats Protection’s ‘Craft For Cats‘ Campaign

‘Craft For Cats’ is a campaign that runs four times a year, where members of the public can participate in community crafting sessions. I originally signed up via Facebook, and have since received campaign updates via their email marketing campaign. The campaign also promotes the brand’s presence on social media, and the campaign itself encourages UGC (User Generated Content) through participants sharing their crafts on social media.

The language used within the copy of the email has an informal, friendly tone, matching the brand’s approachable and friendly persona, and the use of the occasional ‘cat emoji’ reinforces this tone. The use of the phrase “before anyone else” encourages a sense of exclusivity and belonging to a ‘special’ group. There are also multiple CTAs (calls to action) throughout the email, encouraging click-throughs for conversion tracking, etc.

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Referral Marketing Example

Case Study: Pick My Postcode‘s referral bonus campaign

Postcode Lottery site ‘Pick My Postcode’ takes advantage of display ads, to provide their visitors with a ‘bonus’ for visiting their site every day to check if their postcode has won a lottery prize. This bonus is then added to the prize pool if you’re lucky enough to claim a prize. The site offers further boosting of the aforementioned bonus if you ‘refer a friend’, adding up to £200 to the prize pool. By using referral marketing, the site encourages users to spread the word about their site more or less for free, with the incentive to share being the more you share, the more bonus you earn.

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Video Marketing Example

Case Study: Suffolk New College’s ‘Leisure Learning’ Campaign

Video as a medium is booming online in 2023, with social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook reshuffling their algorithms to favour video content. For content marketers, this presents a huge opportunity to jump on the trend and market brands via video.

Suffolk New College, based in Ipswich, Suffolk, is one brand taking advantage of this medium to market their adult learning courses, branded as ‘Leisure Learning‘. By using video to market their courses, they stand a better chance of receiving engagement – as in 2022, “audiences are spending an average of 19 hours a week” watching video content – a number that is only expected to rise as video content receives more focus in social media platform algorithms.

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SEO Marketing Example

Case Study: The American Egg Board (AEB)

SEO Marketing can be defined act of targeting specific keywords and incorporating them into content in order to improve rankings on Search Engines, among other tactics (such as external linking, internal linking, improving site usability, and responsive design).

An example of a successful SEO Campaign is that of The American Egg Board who, prior to their SEO campaign, were seeing declining organic traffic to their website. In response, AEB revamped their site, developing an in-depth keyword strategy and segmenting their audience in order to better understand user intent. As a result, “the company recorded an 87% growth in mobile traffic, a 22% increase in website traffic, and a 39% increase in recipe sharing“.

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UGC (User-Generated Content) Marketing Example

Case Study: Bethesda’s #ReturnToMorrowind Social Media Campaign

Bethesda has recently launched a campaign to encourage User-Generated Content, to celebrate the launch of a new chapter of their MMORPG, Elder Scrolls Online. A blog post on their site asks fans of the game, and the Elder Scrolls game series, to “use #ReturnToMorrowind on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook” to share their “fondest memories” of the previous game in the Elder Scrolls Franchise, Morrowind – and to share what they’re most excited for when they return to Vvardenfell (the setting of Morrowind) in their newest chapter. This marketing campaign encourages fans to indulge in nostalgia – the original game came out in 2002 (and as such is the same age as my youngest sister) – and is considered quite niche, with most modern Elder Scrolls fans having joined the “fandom” with the release of the later game, Skyrim.

Bethesda can then take advantage of all the nostalgic buzz about their game, by sharing positive reviews of the game setting to their own social media profiles, and raising hype for the next chapter of their game. The campaign may even draw the attention of older fans who may have strayed from the franchise, tempting them back with a heavy dose of nostalgia.