Thinking Outside the Box: Lessons to Learn from Unique Marketing Techniques

When it comes to marketing, there are a variety of ways you can ensure your brand is promoted effectively.

At Direct Letterbox Marketing, we use inspiration from all sorts of places in order to make our leaflet delivery as effective as possible. Here, we will take a look at some completely unique marketing techniques and see how they were used to effectively market brands.

Zoolander 2 –Paris Fashion Week

Paris Fashion Week was completely taken aback when, at the end of Maison Valentino’s show, actors Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, also known as Derek Zoolander and Hansel, took to the catwalk.

Tredding the same ground as the likes of Cara Delevingne and Kendall Jenner, this publicity stunt was actually an incredibly clever marketing stunt for the upcoming film Zoolander 2, in which Stiller and Wilson will reprise their roles as male models trying to discover if there’s more to life than being “really, really ridiculously good-looking”.

The campaign was a huge success, with #zoolander2 trending on various social media platforms in a matter of minutes.

Lesson Learned: Do the unexpected

Coca-Cola – Share Happiness

In 2013, Coca-Cola launched a simple, yet effective, marketing campaign that propelled the brand to new heights.

Becoming the product that connects people, Coke launched their ‘share happiness’ campaign with a variety of publicity stunts worldwide.

From creating a vending machine that allowed people in India and Pakistan to communicate with each other, to touring Europe and giving people the opportunity to print their name on a Coke can, there were plenty of different approaches to get people’s attention The ‘share happiness’ campaign was one that truly resonated with people and made the multi-national corporation far more personal.

Lesson Learned: Market your brand in a way that gets people talking

Air New Zealand – An Unexpected Briefing

In 2012, Air New Zealand took advantage of the release of the first Hobbit film for their marketing campaign.

The YouTube video, which depicted probably the best safety briefing of all time, received over 12.1 million views.

Due to the unprecedented success of the original video, Air New Zealand reprised the marketing campaign in time for the release of the second Hobbit film in 2014, which did even better than its predecessor by earning over 13.1 million views on YouTube.

Lesson Learned: Keep it trendy and relevant

Metro Trains – Dumb Ways to Die

When Metro Trains, the managing company of the public transport system in Melbourne, Australia, came up with their ‘dumb ways to die’ campaign, they didn’t anticipate just how popular it would be.

The campaign was originally created to raise local awareness of public safety around trains, partially due to a high level of accidents involving the public transport system, the majority of which are caused by pedestrians and car drivers.

In order to make people more receptive to the message of safety, Metro Trains used fun animated characters and humour to promote its campaign via a music video, a mobile app and posters that were visible at train stations.

The campaign went viral worldwide, with the music video receiving more than 100 million views on YouTube, which is pretty good for a local public transport safety campaign.

Lesson Learned: Keep it fun

Evian – Baby & Me

Everyone loves babies, but water brand Evian went one better with their unique marketing campaign.

What Evian showed us is that, once in a while, and with the help of some mineral water, we should all release our inner child.

The advertisement featured dancing babies and adults making fools of themselves, both of which contributed to it earning over 102.9 million views on YouTube.

Lesson Learned: Keep it cute

We hope you enjoyed looking at these unique marketing campaigns, and perhaps even learned a few lessons. At Direct Letterbox Marketing, we too can help you build your own successful marketing campaign. For more information, contact us today by calling 0800 028 6353.

dlm vans
Leaflet Distribution
Audience Targeting
Royal Mail Door to Door
Distribution Map

Get a leaflet distribution quote

Submit your details and one of our experienced account managers will be in touch.

Distribution Details
Your Details

Get a Quote

Request a quote

Get an instant online quote

Book Your Distribution Online With DLM's New Portal

Thank you very much for your quote enquiry.

If your enquiry was made between our office hours (Mon-Fri, 9am to 5:30pm) a member of our Sales team will aim to get back to you within a few hours.

For any enquiries outside of our office hours, we shall respond to on the next available working day.

If you do not want to wait, please use our online booking portal where you are able to plan and book your distribution online,

Plan and book your distribution online

Our new booking portal is designed to allow you to book your next leaflet distribution campaign online in minutes.