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Brand Strategy Heinz Redbull

Vox pop: Brand marketing stunts to remember (Part 1)

By Andy Black | Editorial Account Executive

BWP Group

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The Drum Network article

This content is produced by The Drum Network, a paid-for membership club for CEOs and their agencies who want to share their expertise and grow their business.

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March 17, 2017 | 6 min read

Beer giants Budweiser have just launched their new campaign at SXSW which involves them pushing to be the first human product to be consumed when man eventually steps foot on Mars. As scientists search for life on Mars and plot a way for people to live there in the future, Budweiser is hard at work figuring out how to make life in space a little more fun by developing a beer made just for the Red Planet.

Vox pop March 2017

Clockwise from top left: BWP, Selesti, RocketMill, The Clearing, Cuckoo, The Future Factory, Pretty Green, JA & Associates

We asked our Drum Network members what their favourite brand marketing stunts have been in the past few years and why?

Adam Wilson, business director, BWP Group

At the core of Paddy Power’s brand sits a value that the majority would go nowhere near – mischief. Forever close to the bone and yet oozing authenticity in a way that is virtually impossible not to love (or appreciate at the very least). One of their finest pieces of work was the ‘Sky tweets’ stunt during the 2012 Ryder Cup – five planes writing cheeky messages in the sky from supportive European fans, mocking and taunting the US Team. Provocative, harmless humour gaining admiration from players and fans alike – yet a stunt that inescapably cemented the brand into people’s minds. Great craic!

Chris Gedge, paid search manager, Selesti

Red Bull Stratos was a space diving project involving Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner. On 14 October 2012, Baumgartner flew approximately 39 kilometres (24 miles) into the stratosphere over New Mexico, United States, in a helium balloon before free falling in a pressure suit and then parachuting to Earth. The total jump, from leaving the capsule to landing on the ground, lasted approximately 10 minutes. Reaching 1,357.64 km/h (843.6 mph), Baumgartner broke the sound barrier on his descent, thus becoming the first human to do so without any form of engine power. Measurements show Baumgartner also broke two other world records.

Chris Philpot, head of technical SEO, RocketMill

Did you know the NHS needs the equivalent of 6,000 blood donations every single day? To raise awareness, they teamed up with Engine Group for the campaign #MissingType. Together they persuaded global brands to drop the As, Bs and Os from their logos, websites and shopfronts. Across a week in late 2016, consumers shopped at Tesco, read the Mirror, searched on Google, ate Marmite and drank Coca Cola. #MissingType enjoyed global press, TV and online coverage. As a result, 30,000 people registered as blood donors during the week of this eye-catching, award-winning campaign.

Rosalind Bull, consultant, The Clearing

I love Dove. Their original ‘Real Beauty’ sketches and recent ‘Choose Beautiful’ campaign, where women were asked to enter a shopping centre through a door marked ‘Average’ or one marked ‘Beautiful’, had a real impact on me. Why? Because it was a PR stunt that did more than simply benefit the brand – it had a positive effect on society, pointing out how the portrayal of women is making so many feel inadequate. And this told women they’re not alone in having these thoughts. Other brands have copied Dove – just look at This Girl Can, Nike’s #BetterForIt campaign, Always #LikeAGirl – but Dove were one of the first to put female identity on the agenda. Wonderful Dove? Pretty close.

Richard Temple, board director, John Ayling & Associates

My favourite brand stunt ran quite a few years ago for Heinz Salad Cream. The creative strapline was “Any food tastes supreme with Heinz Salad Cream” and in many ways settles the age old debate about who gets briefed first – the creative or media department? In this case, the media agency Starcom took the strapline to its logical media conclusion. They bought a 96-sheet on one of the busiest arterial roads into London with just the strapline on a white background. They then hired Mr Mange-Tout from the Jim Rose Freak Circus to eat it over the two week in-charge period until just the logo was showing.

Emma Grace, managing partner, PrettyGreen

A good brand-marketing stunt should unleash the green-eyed monster amongst us all. A feeling of envy driven by an overwhelming desire “I bloody wish I had thought of that”…quickly followed by “so simple!” ...Because the best brand marketing stunts are just that. Simple. Easily described in a sentence. Like the recent "Pass the Heinz" stunt in the US. Heinz brings Mad Men’s Don Draper's campaign idea to life in the real world. Genius.

Priyanka Patel, senior account manager, The Future Factory

A stunt that captured my imagination in recent years has to be the launch of a pseudo-brand (though we didn’t know it at the time) Persona Synthetics. With realistic adverts alongside branded social media, live eBay auctions and a storefront with interactive display on Regent Street, many believed this multi-channel campaign about AI technology and synthetic humans was the real deal! Instead it turned out to be the perfect way for Channel 4 to announce the second series of their hit TV programme Humans whilst bringing us closer to facing the unsettling possibilities of our increasingly technology-led existence.

Phil Rainey, board & creative director, Cuckoo

Keeping in with the music theme I think some of the best marketing stunts are within this sector. My favourite and most recent would be the Radiohead ‘Crop Circle' on the Glastonbury festival site. It allowed both the band and the festival to announce their headline slot jointly, with a striking visual and supporting video that was perfect for going viral. It helps when you’re the biggest band and biggest festival in the world, but whilst the scale of this was literally massive, it was also so simple.

Brand Strategy Heinz Redbull

Content by The Drum Network member:

BWP Group

We are a strategically-led creative agency specialising in brand and customer experience.

We are passionate about brands and retail, which makes for the perfect combination - our passion and your brand. We’ll sort out your strategy, big up your brand, add a touch of magic and get the conversation started.

We have brilliant strategists, award-winning creatives and fantastic client service people.

We have vast experience in launching brands, store openings, experiential and sales driver campaigns for our retail and leisure brands such as IKEA, ECCO, Cotswold Outdoor and Sennheiser.

Our core values of passion, impact, excellence and respect are evident in every project we deliver, the long-term relationships we build, and the results we realise for our clients.

Head Office: Jubilee House, Third Avenue, Marlow, Bucks, SL7 1EY

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Selesti

If you’re really ambitious to change and grow, you’ll need a partner who can help you do and achieve much more. This is our value proposition, and being an excellent digital partner to our clients is the driving force behind everything we do.

At Selesti we believe that with smart use of digital technology we can help our partners to achieve great things. Over the last 12 years, we’ve worked closely with our clients, diving deep into the data, delivering sharp strategies and measurable results. We are vibrant, inventive and ambitious which has led to huge growth for both us and our clients.

Selesti is a Google Premier Partner agency, offering digital marketing as well as web and mobile app development. We create inspirational digital work and enable you to evolve and grow online. 

Our in-house experts specialise in designing profitable campaigns which solve commercial problems. Our data-led work has created a track record of producing fantastic results for clients for over 12 years. If this sounds like something you'd be interested in, then please get in touch.

www.selesti.com

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RocketMill

We are the UK's fastest growing, independent, full service agency, helping businesses grow through marketing performance. We have successfully united traditional creative with our digital heritage to provide brands with a full funnel service, using a strategy we call Total Performance. Our services span Programmatic, PPC, Paid Social, Technical & Content SEO, UX, Analytics, CRO, Creative and Strategy.

We are the #1 Agency to Work For in the UK in 2022 according to Best Companies and have consistently been named in their top 10 Companies to Work For over the last five years. We believe in radical transparency with our team, sharing profits with them along the way, and knowing that if we put our people first, they will do the finest work of their careers for you.

We are trusted by new market entrants and global brands alike, with londstanding partnerships with Kimberly-Clark™, Dropbox, The Telegraph, ZenAuto, HomeServe and USN.

Our strength is evidenced by our compound annual growth rate of +35% for the past six years, our track record of long-term client retention, our industry leading staff retention and the awards our client campaigns win.

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The Clearing

The Clearing helps clients create clear defendable territory around their brands. We've been voted the UK's number 1 brand consultancy for two consecutive years by The Drum Network, and we're proud of our award-winning clients including McLaren, Lidl, HSBC, Ascot, Breast Cancer Now, Eurostar, One Feeds Two, Tom Kerridge and Fitness First.\

We recently created Wild Cards with The School of Life, a box of 100 killer questions to help you understand your brand better, launching it with a series of panels including Google, Ocado, Ascot and McLaren. Now we've turned 25 of the questions into a book, pairing 25 questions with 25 brand leaders from the world's most interesting businesses. One chapter, one question. One point of view to help you solve your biggest business challenges, with anecdotes and anarchic strategies from brands including Google, V&A, Comic Relief, Ascot and Gap. The result is 'Wild Thinking' - a book for people curious about ways to think differently about work. It's being published in May 2019 by Kogan Page.

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John Ayling & Associates

The media agency that backs the underdog. We back advertisers who face adversity - from competitors with larger budgets and resources to macro socio-economic challenges.

Advertisers already face huge challenges from digital transformation to global pandemics and we believe that budget limitation should not be one of them.

We deliver bite by thinking smarter and moving faster.

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PrettyGreen

We are PrettyGreen. An Independent, Award Winning Agency for communications Less Ordinary ​

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We do creative less ordinary. Creative less obvious. Less cringe surveys. Less fake advocacy. Less float it down the Thames. We are a PR agency that creates disruptive and addictive campaigns that are rooted in human truth, to solve problems, shape opinions and free our clients with the possibility of how they could creatively behave.

It’s why we are the chosen agency partner of some of the world’s most revered brands, including Audible, Snapchat, Capital One, Disney, Not On The High Street and Hasbro.

All clients that passionately embrace the power of creative marketing and earned media to drive brand fame. ​

We are proud to be recognised as one of Campaign’s Best Places to Work 2023.

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The Future Factory

With a mix of lead generation, board level consultancy and coaching, we help to make the future more predictable for agency Owners, Founder and Directors. www.thefuturefactory.co.uk

Since 2011, we have helped to shape the future of more than 300 agencies, contributing to new business wins in excess of £100m.

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Cuckoo

Leading Manchester design, digital and marketing agency, bringing imaginative, effective brand solutions to a diverse range of clients.

People who lived through - and led - the digital revolution. Who are experienced in the serious business disciplines of service and results. Yet, have never lost their innocence or ideals. Who still have a capacity to be intrigued. A desire to make friends. An eagerness to face challenges. And, above all, are motivated by the sheer exhilaration of having ideas and making them work. What do you call these people? In a word, Cuckoo.  

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