Learn from the best storytelling marketing campaigns.
Every marketer, at some point, realizes the importance of a good story. It speaks directly with the audience and delivers the intended message.
Over the period, brands have used musical themes, humorous dialogues, and other such tactics to communicate with their audience.
Are you still relying on bland marketing campaigns in this era of creativity?
If yes, let’s get your creative juices flowing with these storytelling marketing examples.
The best examples of storytelling marketing
Here’s a list of some of the most engaging marketing campaigns in recent years.
Some focus on communicating common challenges in a fun manner, while others hit the chords of social responsibility.
1. Dollar Shave Club (DSC): We Got You Campaign
Dollar Shave Club comes with yet another compelling ad campaign targeting everyday grooming issues with its usual witty tone and musical inspiration. It then shows how DSC quickly answers all these questions and features its latest product innovation.
This campaign must be your biggest inspiration if you have a witty brand tone. The catch is to hit them where it hurts (challenges) in a fun and engaging manner.
2. TOMS: 1/3 of Profits for Grassroots Good.
TOMS, a shoe brand, was widely known for its one-for-one campaign, which donated a pair of shoes to someone in need with every purchase. In the past 14 years, the brand donated over 100 million shoes in different countries.
But they recently rebranded and came up with “1/3 of Profits for Grassroots Good.”
Through this campaign, the brand made a bold statement of donating one-third of its annual profits to organizations in need of shaping a better tomorrow.
TOMS remained intact on improving lives but with a more impactful approach.
Another great thing about TOMS is that it doesn’t just brag about helping people but conveys how it does that through sharing reports.
3. Warby Parker: Buy a pair, give a pair
Warby Parker focused on one crucial challenge: “glasses are too expensive.” It then aligned its vision with affordability and giving back to the community.
The founder has a rather touching story about how he started the brand. He lost his glasses on a trip and studied an entire semester without them as they were too expensive.
It was a wake-up call for the founder, and he started working on providing top-notch glasses at an affordable cost. Moreover, for every pair you purchase, WP donates a pair to someone in need.
4. National Geographic: Every picture has a story
National Geographic is known to drop compelling visuals that capture attention. But their social media is filled with stunning shots and a backstory that keeps users coming for more.
Posting pictures with a story and due credits makes the brand more human and connects with them better.
5. Darling Magazine: An effort to redefine beauty
Darling magazine encourages women to love themselves for who they are instead of the set beauty standards.
Unlike other magazines, it doesn’t pass on the idea of ordinary women requiring adjustments to look “more desirable.”
The magazine posts inspiring quotes and pictures without edits to normalize different body shapes, skin textures, colors, and more.
Overall, it speaks with women constantly doubting themselves because of the ridiculous societal beauty norms.
6. Everlane: The promise of radical transparency
Everlane is a D2C fashion brand that thrives on complete transparency in aspects like production costs and ecological footprint.
For example, if the brand sells a $15 t-shirt, it breaks down its entire cost and presents a clear picture.
People loved their vision of radical transparency so much that the company had over $50 million in revenue within five years.
Also, the CEO didn’t release a denim line until he found a manufacturer that consciously tried to recycle the water used and leftover sludge.
All these combined efforts spoke to the audience and made the brand highly successful within a few years.
7. Dove: My Beauty My Say
There are countless women out there judged for their appearance.
“You are too pretty to fight as a boxer.”
“You are too fat to style those outfits.”
“Your skin tone is too dark to put makeup on.”
These are just a few remarks out of the many thrown at women every day. Dove took the initiative with its #mybeautymysay campaign to provide a platform for sharing these stories.
With these stories, Dove encourages thousands of women out there to break these set norms and stand up for themselves.
8. Coca-Cola: Preserve the arctic habitat
Coca-Cola’s marketing campaigns revolve around one core theme—the joy and happiness of connections.
The message remains constant whether it’s humans or the hit polar bear commercials.
The brand’s Arctic Home campaign focused on preserving the precious polar habitat. All the fun and heartwarming polar bear commercials help spread the word and generate over $2 million in donations.
9. Apple: Relax, it’s iPhone
Imagine a mobile ad campaign simply bragging about its latest model’s durability.
We don’t know about other brands, but Apple does not settle with this basic approach. It pushes the right buttons with a toddler in the picture.
It shows all the ways your little one can treat your mobile. Spoiler alert: it sure ain’t pretty.
However, they delivered the message of iPhone 13’s durability with a funny video based on actual incidents.
10. JUST: Eggs on a mission
JUST is an environment-conscious brand focused on creating plant-based eggs.
What we loved about the brand was that it conveyed its mission and vision through a compelling story on its website. It traces back to its origin story, where researchers found a legume that could make eggs.
It then moves further with the whole process of preparing its products. Overall, it conveys how it’s kinder to the environment and great for your health.
11. Moleskin: The legendary notebook
We all know people with custom-designed products representing their favorite artists like Vincent Van Gogh. It’s no secret that hundreds of starry night products are out there, including tote bags, t-shirts, and socks.
Moleskin used a similar approach by claiming that these notebooks were used by artists worldwide.
It became a symbol of creativity, and people around the world wanted one to get their juices running.
12. GoPro: Be a hero
GoPro currently has 10.6 million subscribers on youtube.
Are you wondering how a brand thrives on a platform where it’s challenging to be on top for businesses?
It simply excels with user-generated content. The brand began by hiring athletes to perform challenges and posted the same. Soon enough, people started sharing similar videos.
Then came the Be A Hero Challenge focused on making a difference in the world.
GoPro continuously motivates people to make a difference in the world and share it with them. The submissions are then shortlisted for rewards and features.
It’s a great way to contribute towards society’s betterment and improved brand rankings.
13. Disney Paris: the little duck
The little duck remains one of the best storytelling examples in marketing.
It’s a painfully beautiful tale of a little duckling finding a Donald Duck comic book. But due to bad weather, the duck family takes a flight and leaves.
The heartbroken duckling has to leave the book of its hero behind. After a terrible night, the duck family arrives at Disneyland, where Donald Duck greets the baby duckling.
The entire ad is a rollercoaster of emotions and the perfect happy ending. Disney is brilliant at capturing the right emotions of its fanbase—the little kids.
14. Spotify: Spotify Wrapped
We all come across people with a flex for their music taste. Apparently, Spotify made the flexing easier with one of the most successful marketing campaigns— Spotify Wrapped.
The brand uses machine learning to curate a list of the top five artists, the number of minutes streamed, the most-streamed genre, etc. People share these curations to tell the world a story with their music preferences.
Every year millions of Spotify users share these lists on their social profiles. This promotes the brand and helps the users share their music taste with the world. A win-win for both, isn’t it?
15. Nike: Heroes
Nike features athletes instead of actors in their campaigns. This separates the brand from its competition and conveys the message that athletes are heroes.
The 3-minute film Heroes features 16 German athletes and their efforts in advancing the world of sports.
For instance, it features Zeina Nassar, the boxer who changed the boxing rules to allow Hijab in the ring.
There are many such heroes celebrated in the film who made an actual effort to inspire society and become a voice when needed.
16. Hinge: Let’s be real
Hinge, a dating app, launched its let’s be real campaign after cleverly monitoring its customers.
The brand realized the importance of striking a chord with the customer, be it dating life or reaction to ads.
It then started posting real-life dating scenarios to connect with the audience and promote its profile prompts feature.
The campaign somehow showed how these little prompts help in knowing the real personality of a potential partner.
Should you use storytelling marketing?
Remember that compelling storytelling requires you to identify the things that interest your audience. This is where social listening and sentiment analysis comes into play.
You can easily understand your audience better through online conversations using Radarr and create campaigns that thrive and garner maximum engagement.
Get started and book a demo today.
