Sure, PPC campaigns are science and strategy driven, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be creative and curious to drivebrand awareness.

‍

Let’s take a look at some highly memorable PPC campaigns that worked a charm.

‍

1. Converse “Domaination”

To target their teenage audience, Converse, through the help of agency Anomoly, bypassed the traditional role of the ad and instead chose to use ad copy as well as interconnected microsites to draw audiences into a content-rich experience. These adwords included [First day of summer], [Spelling bee], [How to talk to girls], [How to kiss]. These connected the brand to the audience on a deeper, more cultural level.

‍

‍

2. Snickers “You’re not you when you're hungry”

No one enjoys the perils of making common spelling errors, unless of course if it’s intentional and strategic, like in the case with this cheeky but totally genius campaign by Snickers.
With the help of AMV BBDO ad agency and Google, Snickers focused on a list of top 500 search words and with the help of an algorithm, created multiple spelling errors for those terms – a whopping 25,381 of them in fact. A total of 558,589 ad impressions were made in just two days. Misspelled words included [wether] [gool] [amazin] and [definately]. The spelling errors even made their way to the mini url www.yourenotyouwhenyourehungry.com.

‍

‍

3. Samsung creatively punks Apple

When Samsung released the S6 at the same time Apple released the iPhone 6S, pistols were drawn. Samsung cleverly bid on every iPhone 6 search with ‘ooops did you mean S6?’ instead. Pretty cheeky and definitely brazen, but the stunt paid off in the way of a 1316% click through rate and achieved 30+ media placements on all the big nationals. All is fair in love and smartphones apparently.

‍

‍

4. Top Shop. Detour ahead!

Much loved retailer Top Shop took a slogging during the pandemic, enough to sink it unfortunately. When rival ASOS bought them out they immediately wanted to redirect any Top Shop searches to ASOS. Nice plan, until PrettyLittleThings got crafty with the help of their agency. While the Top Shop website was down, searches still continued by those unaware that the retailer had folded. Those searches were redirected to PrettyLittleThings website instead. The stunt caused a bit of a stir on socials, but the plan worked a treat.

‍

‍

5. Kleenex closes in

If you’ve ever turned to Google instead of a GP when you’ve had a cold, you’re apparently not alone. Realising this, the folks at Mindshare dug deep and identified areas where the biggest flu outbreaks were occurring and targeted those areas with clever PPC ads. The strategy saw 96% of Kleenex UK’s media spend directed to areas where the flu outbreak was most prevalent. In the first two months alone, total sales increased by 40%. Now that’s smart.

‍

‍

6. The Perfume Shop & YouTube

Love them or loathe them, celebrity fragrances are big business for The Perfume Shop, so pushing their ads onto celebrity videos on Youtube for 6 months made perfect sense. Quite simply they targeted videos of celebrities including Sarah Jessica Parker and even Peter Andre who have current fragrance lines on sale with the perfume giant. Great brand awareness whilst targeting specific products. A win-win.

‍

‍

7. Argos and the power of predictive analytics

Putting predictive analytics to work saw Argos win a ‘Best PPC Campaign’ back in 2014 and here’s how they did it. With the help of online marketing gurus at Summit, they used predictive analytics to study customer behavior and then tweaked their ads accordingly and in real time. To really zone in on the behaviour, Summit used data from sources including weather, TV and location. The result was increased sales at a minimum spend. Who doesn’t love that?

‍

‍

8. Ann Summers newsjacking 101

Newsjacking is a brilliant way of dropping a brand smack bang in a topical conversation or debate. When British Airways went on strike in 2010 the media buzz was nothing less than frantic. Seeing a golden opportunity, Ann Summers put their PPC thinking caps on and made bids on all British Airways strike searches and gained unfathomable attention. Sums up the old saying that any press is good press.

‍

Whether you’re new to PPC advertising or simply want to sharpen your game, talk to us about how we can develop a targeted PPC campaign that not only drives traffic but catapults brand awareness.