Building a successful brand comes down to one thing: being the first name on customers’ minds when they’re ready to buy. The good news is that some of the sharpest lessons in brand positioning are already out there, hiding in plain sight. In this article, we’ll show the most memorable marketing gimmicks and look at why they work, so you can borrow a few ideas for your own campaigns.
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What Is a Marketing Gimmick?
A marketing gimmick is a tactic meant to catch attention and get people interested in a product. It can take any form, but the idea is to use a clever or unexpected twist to make people notice.
The best gimmicks stay in people’s minds long after the first impression. They help build brand awareness and make a product easier to recall. As long as you have something that sets your product apart, a gimmick can help push that difference into view.
But gimmicks work best in small doses. Lean on them too often, and customers start to tune out or doubt your sincerity. The whole point is to grab attention, but that only works if you’re not doing it all the time.
4 Best Marketing Gimmicks of All Time
Want to sharpen your copywriting or carve out space for your brand? There’s a lot to learn from the campaigns that got it right. Here are four of the best marketing gimmicks ever made and the lessons worth taking from each one.
Old Spice – The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
Old Spice had one big problem in the 2000s. People saw it as a product for older men, so sales were slipping fast. The company decided to flip the script with an ad called The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.
The spot featured former football player Isaiah Mustafa in a tongue-in-cheek single-shot scene. Sales doubled within a month, and the brand had a new image.
The lesson? Even in traditional channels like TV, there’s room to do something fresh. Old Spice paired a tricky one-take shot with a magnetic personality. That combination pulled off something bigger than a single ad. It gave the brand a sales boost and a base to build on for years after.
Burger King – Whopper Sacrifice
In 2009, Burger King ran a Facebook campaign with a blunt hook: delete ten friends and get a free Whopper.
At the time, Facebook friend lists were packed with distant acquaintances, so trimming ten names felt like no big deal to most users. The idea was basic, but it was one of the first campaigns to test the limits of social media marketing, and it worked.
The promotion only ran for a short time, and gave away around 20,000 burgers before Facebook shut it down. But the results were hard to ignore. Every time someone was “sacrificed,” they got a notification. That meant for every free Whopper handed out, ten more people saw Burger King pop up in their feed.
The takeaway is simple: doing something your competitors wouldn’t dare try can put your brand in front of a much bigger audience than a traditional ad ever could.
Coca-Cola – Share a Coke
Share a Coke worked because of one small change. Coca-Cola printed common first names on cans and bottles, so a regular drink felt personal.
People looked through store shelves for their own name or a friend’s name. If they could not find one, they could order a custom can online for a small extra cost. The idea was simple: people like to feel noticed. Sales rose by 2%, and the campaign spread fast on social media.
Coca-Cola proved that a small personal detail can make an everyday product feel more meaningful. Many brands later used the same idea.
Vote Leave – Football Predictions
In the lead-up to the Brexit referendum, England and Wales were playing in the Euro 2016 tournament. Most political campaigns would have seen the football as a distraction. Vote Leave saw a chance.
They ran an online competition aimed at football fans that offered a £50 million prize to anyone who could predict the outcome of every match in the tournament. It looked like a shot at a big payout for entrants. But for the campaign, it was a way to collect user data.
Whatever your view on Brexit or the campaign behind it, the strategy is worth studying. Tying a political message to a popular sports event pulled in people who might have scrolled past a standard ad. Fans followed the page, and the data collected helped the campaign target future ads with far more precision.
The lesson is to understand your audience well enough to reach them in places and moments that already matter to them.
Key Takeaways
You don’t need a huge budget or a wild stunt to learn from these campaigns. Look at the patterns that run through them:
- Look for an angle that sets you apart from the rest.
- Rethink who your audience is, which can open up a fresh angle for your brand.
- Humor works, and it works hard.
- Standing out carries risk, but it also gets you noticed.
- Add personal or interactive elements.
Marketing gimmicks can pay off in a big way, but they’re easy to get wrong. A bad read on the moment or the audience can turn a clever idea into a mess. Do your research, test your brand voice, and get honest feedback before you put anything out into the world.
Header image: Bradley Pisney