Easter is an absolutely cracking time of the year. We get to scoff as much chocolate as we want and who isn’t egg-static about a 4-day weekend? But puns aside, this holiday is the perfect time for brands to jump on the bandwagon and hatch a plan (get it?) for the most egg-cellent Easter campaigns… and some that ended up a little scrambled (nope, not even sorry).
Tesco – #FindTheEggs
[Image – brightonwp.com]If you’ve never been on an Easter egg hunt before then have you even celebrated Easter?
In 2013, Tesco invited people to ‘join in the hunt’ to find Easter eggs using Google Street View. The game was fun, interactive, easy to use and, with exciting prizes up for grabs including chocolate and 50 Galaxy Tab 2s, the challenge was even more appealing.
So why did it work?
Firstly, the interactive element appealed to both kids and adults. This was a game that families could play together without having to buy anything first. Secondly, with prizes of both the chocolate and gadget variety to be won, there was something to tempt everybody into joining in. Giving this much loved tradition a digital twist was a great move from Tesco!
Whiskas – Easter Cats
[Image – tomorrow-people.com]It’s rare to find a smartphone user who doesn’t religiously use the hilarious filters provided by Snapchat, but even before Snapchat took centre stage, cat food producer, Whiskas, created a comical app of their own.
For a brand that doesn’t necessarily tie in so easily with the theme of Easter, it was pretty clever of Whiskas to find a way of incorporating this holiday into their marketing campaign. The campaign allowed the Whiskas customer base the chance to upload a picture of their cats and fit bunny ears onto them.
It was a simple and effective campaign and proved that with a bit of creativity and imagination you can make any holiday work for your brand.
Cadbury’s – Thanks A Million
As far as well-known chocolate brands go, Cadbury’s is pretty up there! But even this global brand suffered low engagement rates with only 8% of the company’s content featuring in their newsfeed on Facebook.
Cadbury’s took social media marketing to the next level by building a giant Facebook ‘like’ (smothered in chocolate, obvs) and allowing viewers to watch 3 live video streams of the construction. People could even help to build the thumb by ‘adding a block’ via the campaign Facebook app.
The fact that is resulted in a 35% increase in engagement, 40,000 new likes and whopping 350,000 people involved in the campaign speaks for itself!
And the ones that raised a few questions…
Lidl
Lidl hopped (again, sorry-not-sorry) on the Easter bandwagon and some credit is due for originality. They released an advert featuring an awkward dinner between a couple while the woman confesses to having an affair. The husband, however, is too distracted by the products she has bought from a Lidl store. A brave attempt by Lidl but a bit too ‘anti-Easter’ it seemed.
ASDA
[Image – thedrum.com]Lidl isn’t the only supermarket who faced some backlash from Marketing Week regarding their Easter campaign. Back in 2013, Asda launched an augmented reality Easter egg where shoppers were challenged to find three eggs. It didn’t go down too well with the marketing website as they felt shoppers were unlikely to stop mid-shopping trip to chase a virtual lamb, chick and rabbit.
It seems they were a little ahead of their time – especially when you consider the Pokemon Go phenomenon that happened last summer. Perhaps they will give this idea another go sometime…
What do you think about some of these Easter campaigns? Do you agree with the comments made? Why not tweet us at @theukseo and let us know!