What marketers can learn from Twitter’s most creative launch campaigns

So you can see what really works, Twitter’s Next and Arthouse teams have curated a list of some of the most creative campaign launches of 2019, highlighting why each made such a big difference.

According to a new study from Bain & Company, marketing launches are proliferating and using the launch best practices allows businesses to realize 1.5 to 2 times higher revenue growth rates for a brand — proof a campaign that really gets to the heart of what makes a brand unique can boost a business’ bottom line. And the following campaigns have resonated strongly with the social media giant’s users, with the strong buzz helping boost each brand’s respective sales.

The following list includes dogs, chicken nuggets and even popsicles, with each brand making the kind of splash that consumers didn’t forget about in a hurry. Three of the brands – NBA2k, Popsicle and The Ritas – were brought to life at Twitter’s experience at this year’s CES, showing visitors why they made such a difference.

So, if you’re looking to launch a Twitter campaign that makes a big splash, it’s probably time to start taking some notes.

Best purpose driven launch

https://twitter.com/subaru_usa/status/1181615792011595776

Subaru showed how much it loves dogs with this heartfelt campaign as part of the Japanese car brand’s Subaru Loves Pets month. The brand’s first ever #MakeADogsDay shined a light on dog’s in shelters, inspiring its followers to adopt, and it drove awareness through Twitter by spotlighting “underdogs” like

Doug the Pug. Created by Carmichael Lynch agency, this campaign was a huge success, not only helping several dogs find a home, but also helping drive donations to America’s ASPCA. Woof.

Best ‘only on Twitter’ campaign

https://twitter.com/Wendys/status/1124763246370676737

When Wendy’s discontinued its popular Spicy Nuggets in 2017, some Twitter users reacted in shock. One of them was popular rap artist Chance the Rapper, who responded with a prayer for the fast food giant to help bring them back. The tweet generated a lot of attention, which Wendy’s and its agencies (Spark Foundry WW and VMLY&R) smartly tapped into by composing a Tweet pledging to bring them back, but only if it got more than 2 million likes. In less than 48 hours, the likes hit their target, and Wendy’s made good on its promise. You shouldn’t usually leave things to chance, but Wendy’s will be happy that it did here.

Best connection to culture

https://twitter.com/Audi/status/1091327811149811719

Audi tapped into American Football’s annual Big Game to help boost the launch of its e-tron SUV, the car brand’s first fully-electric model. First previewing the car’s launch with the e-tron #SB53 ad on Twitter to build excitement, Audi then fully unveiled the car during the game itself. Along with agency partners PHD, Venable Bell & Partners, and M/H VCCP, Audi capitalized on the event’s passionate audience and it netted the higher number of video views on Twitter during the game among automotive brands.

Best pre-launch tease

https://twitter.com/fortnitegame/status/1184055144364810241?lang=en

In order to launch the new Chapter 2 mode, Fortnite took the game offline to build excitement for 36-hours. During this dark period, the company hid its 12,000+ tweets and pinned a tweet of a black hole, leaving fans clueless and eager to find out clues to get more information on what was coming. This pre-launch campaign was a huge success, hitting the top of the worldwide trending list – proof Fortnite still has the power to surprise its fans nearly three years on from its original launch.

Best product launch

https://twitter.com/Popsicle/status/1151205134019563520

With help from Mindshare and its internal creative agency, U-Studio, Unilever re-launched the iconic ice lolly the Popsicle Double Pops after issuing a rallying call on Twitter, asking for one hundred thousand likes in order to bring it back. This campaign galvanized the product’s fans and caught the attention of media outlets too — later this year, the Double Pops will finally return.

Best brand launch

https://twitter.com/disneyplus/status/1183715553057239040

Disney’s new video streaming service Disney+ made a big impression with a thread that contained more than 600 tweets that highlighted the breadth of the shows and movies it has to offer. It supported the thread with custom emojis and an easy-to-use button that meant those that hearted the tweet would be

sent to a page to subscribe. This campaign really highlighted what makes Disney+ so unique, while also turning the heads of Netflix and Amazon Prime users.

Best brand voice

https://twitter.com/TheRITAS/status/1172147915839758339

Spritz canned wine cocktails, The Ritas, with the help of Dentsu and Draftline, challenged their followers to declare their love for a special flavour they were in the process of relaunching. They wanted to spotlight the return of its popular CRAN-ber-Rita drink and did just that with this playful campaign that kept its fans

guessing; this campaign absolutely nailed the irreverent tone that The Ritas is so famous for.

Best use of live-streaming

https://twitter.com/AntDavis23/status/1150799886029221888?s=20

Whenever 2K launches a new NBA2K video game, it knows fans love to shout about what new stats their favourite basketball players have picked up for the new version and whether they’ve gone up or gone down. For the launch of NBA2K20, with help from Liquid Advertising and BSSP, the game made a live event revealing some of the top NBA stars’ ratings live on Twitter. This helped boost pre-orders and achieved a total viewership of 825,000 users. At its peak, the #2KRatings hashtag also went to number 2 in the world trends. Not bad, eh?

Best digital to physical activation

https://twitter.com/DiGiorno/status/1176224930511409159

As frozen pizza brand DiGiorno started being listed by new delivery services like Amazon Fresh or UberEats, Twitter users mocked the brand’s long-standing “It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno” tagline. But DiGiorno successfully turned the conversation around by announcing it would deliver free pizzas to some Twitter users as part of National Pizza Day. DiGiorno, and its agencies OpenMind and Weber Shandwick, leveraged a Promoted Trend Spotlight ad product on Twitter and implored people to Tweet their city if they wanted DiGiorno to deliver to them. The brand ended up delivering over a thousand pizzas and generated lots of good will, proving how you can turn a negative into a positive.

Best way to fuel fans

https://twitter.com/GameOfThrones/status/1101104759371718657

As millions of fans eagerly awaited the fate of Jon Snow and co. for Game of Thrones’ final season, HBO with the help of Hearts & Science and Bond, launched the creative #ForTheThrone campaign on Twitter. It gave fans a place to receive exclusive first look content, including 18 character posters and 20 new

character emojis, and a forum to talk about the new season’s most controversial twists (don’t worry, no spoilers from us). This created a firestorm of conversation leading up to the premier and, in just 24 hours, HBO matched 33% of all 2018 #GameOfThrones mentions.

Best use of creators

https://twitter.com/MommasGoneCity/status/1103701846177153029

Making a campaign around financial health stand out on Twitter isn’t easy, but BlackRock achieved exactly that with the launch of its annual Global Investor Pulse Survey. Partnering with athletes, parents and prominent figures across various industries, BlackRock, with help from Adaptly, Mindshare, and Edelman, reached a massive audience, driving conversation around the links between financial health

and well-being. The campaign achieved a 25% lift in brand awareness among those who engaged with it, proving financial campaigns can resonate with users just as strongly as consumer brands; it’s all in the execution!

Best short-form video

https://twitter.com/dunkindonuts/status/1139184989956911104

The conversation around healthy eats is becoming more and more of a topic. That means fast food chains must continue to adapt and innovate their products to serve a generation that wants convenience, taste and health, all in one package.

Dunkin’ addressed these challenges head on by expanding its menu selection to satisfy health-conscious consumers. With offerings far outside of the donut category, Dunkin’, along with Publicis Groupe and BBDO, turned to Twitter to raise awareness of the launch of its new protein-packed breakfast options. Dunkin’ was one of the first brands to partner with Twitter ArtHouse to optimize its highly visual TV commercial to create compelling, feed-stopping assets with consistent branding.

Watch this video produced by The Drum in partnership with Twitter to further explore the most creative launches on Twitter this past year, the power of launch and why it’s important.