Piggybacking onto major news events can give brands a shot at instant relevance. Or immediate embarrassment.
Last week, a German lingerie company circulated some racy but sub-par ads that attempted to capitalize on the Edward Snowden whistle-blower story. They were created quickly, though not very cleverly, and got some play on some major sites — all free media for the brand. No harm done.
This rapid-response marketing has increased greatly in the last few years, and will continue to increase, and the ads and messages will only get faster and faster.
The undisputed leader on the quick-ad draw is Oreo.
Just a few of Oreo's magical ads, including a sneaky iPhone launch announcement execution.
Oreo's Daily Twist project — 100 ad images over 100 days (to celebrate its 100th anniversary) — won the Cyber Grand Prix Lion at the Cannes Festival of Creativity last month and the envy of pretty much every ad and marketing person in the world.
Most of these social media ad posts were not planned out ahead of time. Instead, the creatives at ad agencies DraftFCB and digital specialists 360i reacted quickly and brilliantly to current events.
That's high-pressure advertising. But the reward is immediate relevance and massive sharing across social networks. And the media cost of all that social distribution? Zero.
Execution-wise, the product itself — the Oreo cookie — makes it much easier to design quick ads. As a creative, having such an iconic starting point is a huge plus.
The brand's shining moment came during the Super Bowl last February. When the lights went out during the game, within minutes (well before the lights came back on), Oreo tweeted the below image. It spread like a super-virus across the web and outshined every multimillion dollar game TV spot. Again, media dollars spent? Zero.
