2014 Recap: Best Digital Marketing Cases

2014  is almost over, and is that  time of the year in which we  look back and  make a recap of the best  campaigns and activations. This year we have seen some great work in  digital , social media, and mobile campaigns worth of remembering.  Here are for me the top 3 campaigns of this year.  

• Website on Instagram

Did you ever though finding a complete website on Instagram? Well, Ikea did it. Looking to promote a specific collection for a younger target, Ikea Russia decided to use Instagram to promote its collection in a different way. Through Posts and tags, Ikea organized a website on Instagram so its consumer could find everything they were looking for in the social media platform they use the most.  As Beta 21 mentions “While companies across the world are still trying to figure out ways in which they can use Instagram to engage with their consumers, Ikea has gone ahead “

• Chipotle Scarecrow

This campaign made marketing that doesn't feel like marketing. They created an entertainment world around a TVC spot, being gaming in the core  of it. This campaign was awarded in multiple festivals , including the Grand Prix Cyber lions.  As mobiforge.com mentions: “The Scarecrow franchise created a conversation about food in popular culture generating over 614,000,000 PR impressions.” Some amazing statistics:

•  In its first month it generated over 18.4 million conversations across 17 social platforms
•  Achieved a  92.7 social sentiment score.,
• The Video has reached over 12,500,000 YouTube views.
• Over 650,000 people downloaded  the game, playing for an average of 5 minutes.
• The song debuted #32 on Billboard's Streaming Songs chart and reached over 13,000 purchases on iTunes

Urban Hilton Weiner

For me this is one of the most clever campaignsin 2014. Selfies  have become the new way of taking pictures and a very common practice among millennials. Realizing that for their customers taking selfies is natural, Urban Hilton Weiner decided to turn selfies into  coupon codes. If you took a selfie wearing one of their clothes and posted it using the hashtag #urbanselfie you received a 10 USD coupon.  As Jeff Bullas highlights  “This ingenious marketing technique accomplishes everything that any retailer would want from a social media campaign – it exposes people to specific items of clothing, encourages social sharing, and most importantly, gets people in stores and buying clothes they wouldn’t have otherwise purchased”

Any other case you think was succesful during 2014?

Social Media: New Opportunities

When advertisers are planning their social media campaigns they mainly look at Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and usually allocate a big portion of their investment in Facebook.  Although Facebook continues having an impressive number of users, among younger demographics usage is declining.  Advertisers need to start looking to different platforms that will help them connect better with their target and achieve their business goals. When trying to contact and impact consumers, companies shouldn't be thinking about paid media to increase engagement, but being relevant on the platforms that consumers are spending more time.

So taking that in consideration, what other options advertisers should be considering?

As @jaysondemers mentions on his blog post about the The Top 7 Social Media Marketing Trends Dominating 2014, image-centric social networks like Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat continue on the rise, and may be the place where companies become more relevant.  More and more, people continue uploading and sharing images with their closest networks. Brands have started capitalizing on this trend and have started developing strategies that leverages the use of these platforms.

But besides image media centric platforms there are a new set of social media sites that companies should start looking into. Not necessarily to be in them but to identify insights and trends that would help them leverage their overall social media strategy.

The first one is Ello. This site  has become the new hottest social media site. “Ello is a simple, beautiful, and ad-free social network created by a small group of artists and designers, that now is open now to a wider audience”  As lily Heil newman mention s on her blog, this site is considered by many as the Anti-Facebook. The main promise of this social network is that is not run by advertisers and privacy is respected.. Currently, you can join by invitation only . It is so hot right now that the invitations are being sold on e-bay.


The second social network that is growing and worth looking into is: Shots. Selfie was the word of 2013 and it was named like it because everyone was talking selfies. Based on this premise Shots was created. Shots is a mobile social network through which you can snap and share selfies. You can reply to any given Shot, and also send private messages. The app is only available for iOS, but will be launching an Android version soon.

Finally we have Bubblews . The first social media that pays you for sharing content. Bubblews, allows users to create posts ("bubbles"), follow friends, and "like" and comment on other bubbles. The company pays its users who attract advertisers and traffic.

What other platforms you think we should be considering? Any advice?