The best digital campaigns do more than merely debut a product. They excite, inspire, deepen an audience’s connection to the brand. The best digital campaigns get people talking. In the realm of fashion and beauty that usually means creating unique and captivating content, engaging with influencers, and dominating social media feeds.
So who was winning at digital marketing in 2018? And more importantly, what can we learn from them? That’s what we’re here to find out, so let’s take a look at five successful digital campaigns that got it right in 2018.
Top 5 Digital Campaigns in 2018
Versace – The Clans of Versace
Millennial and Gen Z consumers care about inclusivity. They care about being represented and having their voices heard. It’s exactly this desire that Versace tapped into with their fall/winter 2018 campaign titled “The Clans of Versace”.
The strong photo and video campaign featured a diverse cast of models, decked out in outfits that represented the various incarnations of the Versace man or woman. One highly publicized element of the campaign was an image claimed by Versace to be the longest advertising image ever.
“This image made up of 54 models is a true representation of clans that embody everything Versace stands for – diversity expressed together with innovation,” the brand said in a tweet.
Casting 54 models had another major benefit: leveraging their social media followings. One Instagram post from Gigi Hadid alone garnered close to a million likes.
Prada – The Delivery Man
Oscar-winning actor J.K. Simmons is The Delivery Man. In a series of cinematic vignettes, Simmons delivers the coveted Prada Cahier bag to customers in the face of numerous challenges.
The films were launched on Prada’s website and social media, including IGTV. Between the high production value and stellar cast, Prada not only drew in audiences, they all but guaranteed coverage of the campaign in major news outlets and fashion publications.
Adding to the success of Prada’s campaign was the multigenerational up-and-coming female talent. Pom Klementieff, Sasha Lane and Bahia Gold expanded the reach and interest of the campaign, not to mention its social media spread.
Combined, the three videos on Prada’s official YouTube channel have racked up over 1.7 million views.
Yeezy – Season 6
How do you win social media? Ask Kanye West, who blew up the internet with his Yeezy season 6 digital advertising campaign.
A brilliant piece of viral marketing, the Yeezy campaign started with a series of paparazzi shots of West’s wife Kim Kardashian wearing the collection. Next, West recruited influencers and Instagram models to dress up like Kim and replicate the shots.
All of these guerrilla campaign photos were debuted on Instagram by the models themselves.
The brilliance of the Yeezy campaign was that it was inventive and buzz-worthy. Kim Kardashian clones suddenly started appearing in everyone’s social media feeds, and the campaign quickly spread — giving #yeezyseason6 unimaginable reach and visibility.
What’s more, the campaign tapped influencers of varying tiers — from Micro Influencers like Chinqpink, to Mid-Tier Influencers like Kristen Noel Crawley and Sami Miro, to celebrity Paris Hilton. This meant that the viral spread was not only far-reaching but also highly targeted, influential, and perfectly in line with the brand message.
Among 2018 digital campaigns, this one was a wild success. Products quickly sold out, and fashion search engine Lyst reported a 45 percent spike in search demand for Yeezy on its platform in the week after the campaign appeared.
Bulgari – Rule
As one of the oldest Italian jewelry houses, Bulgari is steeped in timelessness and tradition. But for any luxury brand to survive, it can’t rely on heritage alone: it needs to keep moving and shaking and finding ways to reach new generations of consumers.
The genius of Bulgari’s 2018 “Rule” campaign was that it paired an innovative and boundary-pushing design — the B.zero1 ring — with a younger-than-ever brand ambassador, tying together two elements that would double the appeal to next-generation buyers.
For their campaign of print and digital ads, Bulgari cast a 21-year-old Bella Hadid, a certified social media darling and icon of her generation, alongside model Lily Aldridge. The message of the campaign was simple yet effective: strong women of today reinvent the rules in order to lead a joyful and empowered life. It’s a #metoo era message that resonates with a young, feminine audience like those within the Hadid fan base.
Though the exact total of video impressions is unknown, you can bet it’s an impressive number: Hadid’s campaign video has racked up over 3.6 million YouTube views, in addition to the million-plus views on one of her Instagram posts alone.
Bulgari also cleverly extended the content of the campaign by posting behind-the-scenes interviews with the models.
Dior Makeup – The Beauty Of A Dark Dream
Beauty trends move slower than fashion trends. So a big question for beauty brands is, how to always ensure there’s something new and fresh for fans to get excited about?
One answer: tying in campaigns with events and occasions. Take one of Dior Makeup’s 2018 digital campaigns, for example, which was released specifically for Halloween. It was yet another to recognize and capitalize on the appeal of model and social media star Bella Hadid. In a mysterious and surreal film, Hadid navigates a fantastical universe done up in three Dior beauty looks by makeup artist Peter Philips.
These looks weren’t merely on theme for Halloween; they also struck a balance of being classic and highly replicable. As a result, they spurred social media makeup tutorials, some brand-endorsed and others not, that could help customers recreate the looks using Dior products at home — exactly what the brand would have been aiming for.
What were your favorite digital campaigns of 2018? Let us know in the comments!
Take a look at how digital marketing has changed campaign launches in the beauty industry.
By Launchmetrics Content Team
The Launchmetrics content team is always on the lookout for new trends in the fashion and technology sector. We are geeks with style and lovers of good stories!
