From Don’t Squeeze the Charmin to Old Spice’s “Smell Like a Man, Man”, there have been some amazingly clever marketing ideas over the years.

 

A lot of them come from the B2C space, and it can be hard to translate that into workable concepts for B2B.

 

Let’s take a look at some of them and extract some useful takeaways you can apply to your own campaigns.

 

Clever Marketing Ideas and What You Can Learn From Them

 

1.      Wit and Humor (Old Spice)

No list of awesome marketing campaigns would be complete without this gem. It’s a prime example of a total rebranding success, and of how to use viral marketing effectively.

 

 

Here’s the story: In 2006, Old Spice was not doing well. It had been around since 1937 (nearly 70 years). It was a product commonly regarded as an “old guy” scent (my mother still associates it with my grandfather). It was getting demolished by more modern brands like Axe.

 

Research showed that women were responsible for over 50% of bodywash purchases, and that became the central factor for the campaign designed by W&K, who were hired to reverse the brand’s fortunes.

 

They conceptualized a campaign aimed at women, hired ex-football (that’s American football, not soccer) star Isaiah Mustafa and made him “the man your man could smell like”. The rest is history.

 

The campaign leans on rapid-fire over-the-top humor and instantly transformed Old Spice from an outdated, mostly-forgotten brand into a viral sensation that had everyone laughing and sharing it. And then buying the product.

 

Takeaway: Don’t be afraid to use humor. It’s an often-forgotten fact that even in B2B, those professionals you’re marketing to are still people, and people love to laugh.

 

I’m not saying hire a sports star to sit on a horse for a commercial (though if you do, I want to see it). But don’t be afraid to make your marketing witty and funny, because witty and funny is memorable.

 

 

2.      Re-Engage Lapsed Customers (Borderlands 3)

This one’s a lot more recent. Publisher 2K Games and developer Gearbox Software released Borderlands 2 on September 18, 2012. Fast-forward to 2019, and they were gearing up for the release of the sequel on September 13, almost exactly seven years later.

 

 

Seven years is a long time, especially in the video game industry. Even avid fans hadn’t touched Borderlands 2 in a good while, and 2K needed to remind people of why they loved that game so they’d buy the upcoming sequel.

 

So they did something really clever. They got people playing Borderlands 2 again by developing and releasing additional content for free, and then promoting the heck out of it.

 

That additional free content was fairly short, but it served two purposes: it got people playing the game again, and it was a direct lead-in to the plot of Borderlands 3. It reminded people of why they enjoyed the game, and excited them about the sequel.

 

In other words, the developers managed to leverage a long-outdated product into a springboard for hype about their new one.

 

Takeaway: You can take a couple different ideas for B2B from this. If you’ve got a software product that hasn’t been updated in a while and a lot of users have fallen off, you can update it and improve it, and then reach out to lapsed customers and let them know that there’s been major improvements.

 

And when you do that, consider offering them a free trial period to get reacquainted with your product and see what’s new and awesome. That way, there’s no commitment (and therefore less friction) for them, and you can let your update convince them to come back on board.

 

Remind them of why they purchased your product originally, and make it worth their while to sign back up.

 

3.      Create a Viral Loop (ALS Ice Bucket Challenge)

Here’s one that a lot of people didn’t even realize was a marketing campaign at first. The internet loves challenges – where you do something on camera and then challenge other people to do it too.

 

The “cinnamon challenge” is a great example of this: the challenge was simply “try to eat a spoonful of cinnamon”. Turns out that while the spice is nice in moderation, it’s extremely hard to even put a spoonful of it in your mouth without coughing it everywhere.

 

These challenges tend to go viral, but there are two keys to success: they need to be amusing to watch and not too awful to perform.

 

The ice bucket challenge was an online campaign to raise awareness and funds for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). The idea was simple: pour a bucket of ice water over your head, and then challenge at least three other people to do the same and make a donation to the ALS Association.

 

That’s pretty funny to watch, it’s not that bad to do, and it’s a donation to a good cause. It went viral in a huge way, and generated $115 million in just eight weeks.

 

It was so successful, it even had a whole pile of celebrities participating, including Bill Gates, George W. Bush, Rihanna, Mark Zuckerberg, Tom Cruise and many others.

 

 

Takeaways: Viral marketing is elusive in general, and doubly so for B2B, but you can do it. Think outside the box, and create something that encourages people to participate and propagate it for their own and others’ amusement. It’s not going to be very effective for B2B lead generation, but it is great for building brand awareness and reputation.

 

Keep it simple and low-effort for participants, with a focus on light-hearted humor, and you might just strike the right chord to create a viral campaign that dramatically raises brand awareness.

 

Then, when your lead-gen marketing comes around, it’s more likely that your target audience will remember you favorably.