9 Brands With The Most Creative Advertising Strategies

[timmy]

In 2009 Burger King launched a campaign on Facebook where if you unfriended 10 friends then you were entitled to a free whopper. The ex-friend would receive a message explaining that their friendship was less valuable than a Whopper (or a tenth of a Whopper...). Facebook forced them to stop this campaign since it violated their terms of service, but not until Burger King was able to boast that they ended over 234,000 friendships.

[timmy]

The only difference between Tylenol Cold and Tylenol Flu is the box, they have the exact same active ingredients. The packaging just makes people feel better that they bought the right drug for their illness. Additionally, the only thing added to nighttime versions is an antihistamine to help make you tired.

[timmy]

Captain Morgan rum company found the perfect way to advertise. Researchers from Texas State University, who were studying the 17th century pirate Captain Morgan, ran out of funds while attempting to retrieve artifacts from his sunken ships off the coast of Panama. The Captain Morgan company then granted them funds to continue working, hoping that they find something cool down there to bring to life the real Captain Morgan.

[timmy]

The Ohio Art Company, the company that makes the Etch a Sketch, found a saving grace in the Toy Story movies. The first movie got their sales off of the ground, and then on the verge of bankruptcy they agreed to have their toy be featured again in Toy Story 2. Although the scene featuring an Etch a Sketch was only 45 seconds long, it resulted in a 20 percent sales bump that helped to save the company.

[timmy]

 

Monopoly Man

Entrepreneur Robert Taylor, inventor of soap-in-a-pump-bottle and the company Softsoap, knew larger competitors would try to copy his product. In order to ensure they couldn't copy him, he bought 100 million bottles worth of hand pumps from the only two manufacturers in the US. This resulted in a year of monopoly on the market supply which was enough to make his brand name known, and it is still well known to this day.

 

[timmy]

Dunkin Donuts in South Korea recently started trying a new version of advertising: Flavor Radio. With this advertising, they would spray coffee aroma into public buses every time their jingle played, and then have a store conveniently located at the exits. Coffee sales increased 29% over the course of the campaign.

[timmy]

Some fruit spread companies use 3 different types of sweeteners in order to fool people in the ingredients label. If the company only used sugar, it would be so much that they would have to list sugar as the first item on the ingredient list. By spreading out the sweetening job over three sweeteners, they can push fruit to the top of the list to make it appear like there is more fruit than sweetener.

[timmy]

The Houston airport figured out a clever psychological trick to make people appreciate their service more. They received many complaints about baggage wait times in the past, so in response they moved the baggage claim further away so that the walk was longer than the wait. The number of complaints dropped off as people spent more time walking and less time standing and waiting for bags.

[timmy]

FIJI Water once ran an ad joking that it "wasn't bottled in Cleveland" which rustled a lot of feathers in the Cleveland Water Department (CWD). The CWD then proved that Fiji Water contained the highest levels of arsenic and other contaminants when compared to Cleveland tap water and other bottled brands. This was a battle of the brands to figure out who could outdo the other.