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DGT Loves… January 2022 Marketing Campaigns Round-up

Happy New Year all! If you’ve been following us for a while now, you know that every month we look back on our favourite Marketing campaigns of the last few weeks. Not only is it a bit of fun, but it gives us a chance to appreciate the marketing efforts of others in the industry. In case you’ve missed it, previously in the DGT Loves blog, we’ve discussed the beautifully curated Christmas campaigns from Disney and Amazon along with the tongue in cheek social responses from Specsavers, and why we love these campaigns so much – all of which you can check out here: DGT Blog

And we’re back again with some more brilliant campaigns. So, without further ado, let’s get into the first edition of DGT Loves… for 2022.

Aldi are at it again!

We couldn’t do the first edition of the year without mentioning Aldi. They’ve come up in a few editions of the DGT blog for their cheeky marketing tactics. Well, they’ve only gone and done it again.

If you’re on any social media platform you would have seen that Aldi was in hot water with M&S yet again. This time it was over gin. In Christmas 2020, M&S brought out Snow Globe Gin, beautiful bottles of gin that were filled with edible glitter and lit up from the bottom to replicate a snow globe. It was a great idea and so popular that Aldi decided to come out with their own range of snow globe gins for Christmas 2021.

Already in M&S’s bad books, the copycat gin was never going to slip under the radar, particularly because it was also £6 cheaper than M&S’ version. Even though for Aldi it meant another day in court (have they learnt nothing from Cuthbert?), for us it meant we got to see some more hysterical social posts. Check out of favourites below:

@aldiuk #duet with @ryanair Tag other brands that may be able to help us 👀 #FreeCuthbert #Round2 #Aldi #Alditok ♬ Originalton – Iconicfatma

We love this why? Well, like everything Aldi does it’s funny, entertaining, and light-hearted. The social posts get people talking and if you didn’t know

Aldi had their own cheaper version of the snow globe gin, you certainly do now.

Find Malik A Wife – Billboard

Marketing doesn’t just have to be for business’ as 29-year-old Londoner, Malik, proved. Earlier in the month billboards started appearing across London, Birmingham and Manchester advertising Malik with the copy “Save me from an arranged marriage” directing people to findmalikawife.com. The billboards which are set to be displayed until 14th January was created with the intention of finding Malik a wife before his parents find one for him. Heading over to the site you will find more information about Malik and what he is looking for in a person, if you’re into good food and “bants” you might just be the one for him! It’s refreshing to see someone trying something a different approach to modern dating rather than swiping endlessly on dating apps or being set up on dates by friends, all of which left Malik “feeling awkward”. You can check out the billboard below:

 

Why do we love this? Whilst Malik certainly isn’t the first person using a billboard for personal advertisement, it’s still something that is rarely done and so when it is, it catches the attention of many people across the country – not just London. It’s certainly effective marketing and we admire the gumption from Malik to put himself out there. Hopefully, Malik finds a wife off the back of it!

EDIT: Unfortunately, Find Malik A Wife was all a ruse! It has since been revealed that Muslim dating app, Muzmatch, was the mastermind behind the viral campaign. And whilst we applaud the dating site for its marketing efforts, we can’t help but feel it was a little disingenuous. We were really invested in Malik’s search for a wife and praised his efforts to try and do something a little different to the norms of online dating when really it was all part of a bigger marketing plan. It’s well worth noting that this type of “gimmicky” marketing might get you noticed but it can really hurt your credibility and your authenticity – a massive and vital trend in engagement marketing.  Nonetheless, Malik has confirmed that he is genuinely looking for a wife, and if nothing comes from the campaign for Muzmatch, at least Malik has sparked some interest with The Guardian reporting that “A member of Muzmatch’s marketing team is helping Malik sift through the thousands of responses. Malik said he had personally responded to more than 100 so far.” Good luck Malik!

The Apprentice – Unfortunate Logo Design

If like us, you’ve been excited for the long-awaited return of The Apprentice, you will know that the first episode did not disappoint. The new series, which hasn’t aired since 2019 due to Covid, saw 16 of the country’s most interesting entrepreneurs enter the boardroom ready to impress Lord Alan Sugar in the hopes of winning a £250k investment in their business. Whether they did impress him during the first task is debatable, but if nothing else, the budding businessmen and women certainly entertained us.

Lord Sugar sent the teams down to Portsmouth for a Marketing task, promoting a cruise. They had to come up with a name for the cruise, a logo, create a TV advert and interactive social ad all before pitching it all to some of the industries experts! It’s one of our favourite tasks for obvious reasons so the DGT team were happy to see it come up first.

Now, we need to add that both of the teams’ efforts were a bit of shambles, but the boys did particularly badly. Promoting the cruise ‘Seaquinity’ for their company ‘Never Ending Cruises’, the team wanted to showcase a luxury cruise for the older generation promoting health and well-being. The names weren’t great and the idea itself wasn’t the most original but what got people talking the most was the logo. The idea itself wasn’t too bad, it had potential. But the execution… well, just have a look for yourself.

The colours, the shape, the lack of name… everything about it makes us want to cry, it’s awful. And so, it’s no surprise it’s caused a series of hilarious memes across social media. Here are some of our favourite responses:

Whilst we don’t love the campaign itself, the show acts as a warning that with a lack of knowledge, experience, and research you could find yourself at the butt of many jokes. When creating a brand logo, it’s vital that you take your time and do your research, if you’re not sure ask for feedback and if someone does tell you your logo looks like “a wave of snot” you might want to take that into consideration.

And for one final laugh,  if the boys hadn’t learnt their lesson in the marketing task, they decided that for the latest task where they had to design a Toothbrush for kids… they would just replicate last week’s logo. Enjoy!

Let’s create something amazing together.

With your knowledge and our skills, we’re confident that we can create something amazing together. If you’re looking to accelerate your demand generation efforts in 2022, we can definitely help. We promise to deliver and ensure you don’t end up with anything that looks like the marketing campaigns on The Apprentice! Get in touch with us today to find out more.

Posted by Xena Graham on Monday 24th January 2022