When buying a product what’s important to you? Competitive pricing? Cutting edge features? Or is something else guiding your purchasing preferences?

While we all like to think of ourselves as logical, well informed consumers, we all are influenced
through marketing campaigns. For some products, even the name can grab attention and convince someone to pick it over a competitor. Great marketing doesn’t just tell customers about a product; it creates a brand. This is why effective marketing is so crucial; once the brand is established, customer loyalty can follow. This means customers repeatedly choose products from the same brand rather than switching to others. Dan Rosenberg, CMO at Cash for Cars, states that companies should always think about building brand loyalty when planning marketing campaigns. If executed well, marketing campaigns can strengthen brand loyalty. Here are five marketing campaigns that were
epic wins.

1. Apple – iPod
Want proof of Apple’s marketing success? Just see which smartphone brand is in 42% of consumers’ pockets. Apple’s marketing campaign started with three principles: 1) empathy: understand and serve the customer better than competitors, 2) focus: ignore everything else, and 3) impute: ensure everything you do supports (1) at all times.
This philosophy helped guide Apple in their 2001 iPod marketing campaign which was spearheaded by a swanky looking silhouette of Mandy Coulton dancing with a contrasting white iPod device. The iPod was not the first portable mp3 player, and many argue it wasn’t even the best. In fact, it lacked some features of its competitor (such as an FM radio), but the
Apple brand and consumer oriented brand was more than enough to make up for its shortcomings. The iconic ad campaign must have worked; Apple took the majority share of the market by the end of 2002.

2. Nike – Find Your Greatness
In 2012 Nike leveraged what may have been the brand’s greatness weakness, its lack of official Olympic sponsorship, as the primary theme for its ad campaign. The “find your greatness” campaign showcased the drive and achievements of everyday athletes, such as a 200 pound 12 year old boy who vowed to change his life and diet. The campaign was promoted throughout social media networks as well as through a YouTube promotion that encouraged athletes globally to upload videos and to discuss how regular people find their own greatness. While the campaign was controversial, it was highly successful; Nike saw a 6% growth in Facebook fans and a 77% increase in Facebook engagement, as compared to 59% for Adidas.

3. Axe – Susan Glenn
For Axe, a brand targeting young men, it’s was only fitting to use a compelling female figure as the centerpiece of their refined marketing campaign. Axe put out a series of ads focusing on “Susan Glenn”, who symbolizes lost love, or “the one that got away”. Utilizing emotions to compel consumers is common among marketing campaigns but Axe did it right; the original ad received 30 million views with a 75% completion rate and a 95% “thumbs up” rating and was a gold winner in the IAB MIXX awards 2013.

4. Mountain Dew – Beyond the wall
A good ad campaign gets the community involved and engaged. Mountain Dew did both in an unusual fashion by inviting graffiti artists to decorate virtual spaces displayed on Google Street View. Entitled “beyond the wall,” Mountain Dew’s marketing team both studied the movement of graffiti art and prorogated its brand. Not only did 24% of the target market participate in the project, Mountain Dew grew 28% as a result of the campaign.

5. Oreo – Daily Twist
For a product over 100 years old, Kraft’s Oreo is still going strong. Part of its recent success can be contributed to its adaptive marketing campaign which flexed its creative muscles for Oreo’s 100th birthday. For 100 days the marketing team specially designed ads based on pivotal events throughout time. Such a marketing campaign placed the product in a historical context and helped alter our perceptions of it as a vital part of modern culture. Still skeptical as to the ad’s success? Just check the numbers – the Daily Twists have been seen more than a million times on Facebook, and after the campaign’s launch Oreo saw a 110% increase in fan interaction per social-media post.