Three Great Interactive Marketing Campaigns in 2018

One of the fundamental goals of interactive marketing is to get the audience you’re trying to attract to engage in what you’re doing. Marketing doesn’t have to (and shouldn’t) be a one way street; you talking to the consumer.

That’s where interactive marketing flips the script. It’s inherently designed to engage with consumers, to get them talking and taking action. Plus, it’s been shown to be far more effective at educating buyers than traditional passive content too.

Creative brands that focus on interactive marketing can get better results — both short term and long term — by taking an approach that drives results. 

Interested in seeing some interactive marketing campaigns in action? We thought you’d never ask!

In this post, we’re doing a year end round up that will feature some of the best interactive marketing campaigns we saw in 2018. 

Omaze: Meet celebs and do good 

We all dream about meeting our favorite celebrity or doing cool things like walking the red carpet at an event. But for the vast majority of us, these are just dreams. 

Omaze is an online fundraising platform, with a twist. It teams up with some of the biggest celebs and events in the world to raise money for charity. To enter a chance to win, all the consumer needs to do is donate $10.

Omaze is disrupting the idea of charity by tapping into the ever-growing “experience economy;” the idea that people are more interested in spending money on experiences versus stuff. Now, couple that with super targeted viral focused marketing campaigns, and you’ve got a recipe for success. 

One example of a winning Omaze campaign featured a behind the scenes tour of the Game of Thrones set with the Mother of Dragons herself, Emilia Clarke. 

Two YouTube videos generated millions of views and helped kick off a huge viral push over the next month. Over 50,000 people donated, raising $1.5 million for the RCN Foundation, a nursing charity that was picked to be the beneficiary of the contest. 

23andMe: Root for Your Roots

Ever four years, the World Cup is one of the biggest sporting events in the world. This year was no different, with one big exception: the United States failed to qualify for the event. 

That led many advertisers to scramble. How could they get Americans invested in an event whe there wouldn’t be any of their fellow countrymen playing?

Enter 23andMe.

The DNA testing tool decided to have some tongue in cheek fun with the World Cup. They partnered with Fox Sports in an advertising blitz specifically targeted to the 58% of fans who said they would be more likely to watch if they knew their ancestral origins. 

They launched the Root for Your Roots campaign which allowed users of the product to go on the site and check out an interactive that highlighted which countries in the World Cup they should root for based on their ancestry. 

This campaign was a fun way to get people invested in the World Cup after the disappointment of not qualifying, and sell a few products too. 

Spotify: 2018 Goals

When it comes to collecting user data, some brands run into issues (looking at you, Facebook) and others have found ways to use that data in creating ways that enhances marketing. 

Spotify is one brand that has been able to use big data in a way that attracts users. Ironically, one of the ways they do it is through offline marketing, namely through billboards and other ‘old school’ style ads. 

This year, Spotify released its 2018 Goals campaign. It featured billboards and ads across the country that pulled out fun and unique facts about Spotify’s listeners and asked users to inspire to be like them. 

Think of it as a twist on user-generated content. These ads were specifically engineered to get people to back online and use the product. Let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to have an entire billboard based on their playlist? 

There was a secondary benefit to these ads as well, a special offer for $.99 cents for three months of premium Spotify service. And judging by their huge growth in 2018, the campaign was able to get people who saw the ads to open the app or go home and jump on Spotify. 

Interactive marketing takes many forms…

While you’re probably familiar with the many types of interactive content out there, it’s always a good idea to check out new ways to get consumers to take action.

Of course it takes creativity but thinking out of the box and approaching the information you have in new and inventive ways can make all of the difference.

These three brands have been able to disrupt some of the conventional marketing concepts in their industries in 2018 and saw a lot of success along the way.