Some brands we loved in 2018.
2018 saw an explosion of purpose-led marketing campaigns, with the best brands tackling issues that are central to their mission with wit, candour and style.
Here’s a few of our favourites:
Oatly
Milking It
Oatly totally nailed it in 2018 – their Kings Cross outdoor takeover was bold and playful – their use of outdoor media to tell an unapologetically anti-dairy story has also generated acres of free coverage for the brand. Their trademark attitude and swagger is totally in tune with the young “post-milk” generation audience driving their sales and the smart product move of carefully marketing their barista blend into independent coffee shops has seen them corner a crucial opinion forming sector. They live their purpose fully and shout about it whenever they can focussing attention on their big picture environmental mission and using social media adeptly to do so. Now they’re off to American to cause some more fuss, great.
Riverford
Moving to an Employee Owned Model
A long-standing favourite brand of ours and one we collaborated with on our Biona Organic Champions campaign last year. We chose Riverford not just for their marketing in 2018 but for their visionary commitment to their values and purpose. Their focus on ditching plastic across the business coupled with their big move to make the company employee owned means that Riverford’s commitment to their organic and social purpose is enshrined while harnessing the collective power of their people to drive the evolution of the brand. It’s a smart move to future-proof the business and escape the attention of external investors and one that is likely to become increasingly popular among the new wave of purpose-led organic brands.
Channel 4
Taking on the Trolls
Building on the success of its superb Superhumans campaigns, this time it was taking on the trolls by collaborating with Nationwide, Maltesers and McCain’s for an ad break takeover and supporting the idea through smart use of social media content #togetheragainsthate. It was encouraging and refreshing to see three mainstream global brands address the online abuse faced by the actors who appear in the brand’s advertising and adapt their own creative to dramatise it. Channel 4 continues to live its purpose of challenging the status quo and tackling the big issues that other broadcasters struggle or are unwilling to address.
