The Magic Behind 3 Of The Most Effective Ad Campaigns Of 2013

The Axe ad was successful because the brand listened to its customer base of frustrated adolescents and young men and found a fundamental truth: most of the brand's desired customers seemed to know (or had at least seen) a woman they desperately wanted, but didn't know how to approach. In creating "Susan Glenn," Axe was able to use this truth to present itself as a brand that both understands and provides the antidote to the anxieties of its customers in the 15-21 year-old male demographic.

"Susan Glenn is a fantastic example of modern storytelling across different media," said Susan Credle, chief creative officer at the advertising agency Leo Burnett. "The team created a conversation that was just waiting to be had through a simple creative idea: who is or was your Susan Glenn? A breathtaking piece of film took this conversation to the masses."

"The Beauty Inside" was a six-part, 30-minute online film made by Intel, Toshiba, and their agency, Pereira O'Dell, to stress the importance of inner beauty — not just with regard to human beings, but the Intel chips inside every Toshiba laptop.

The story centered on a character named Alex, who wakes up every morning in a different body, and falls in love with a woman named Leah. Because Alex was a different person every day, Intel and Toshiba invited the public to try out for roles in the series and to film themselves saying certain lines of dialogue, which were then included in the series.

The videos, which included beautiful cinematography and a touching, happy ending, generated more than 70 million views worldwide and an approval rate of 97% on YouTube.

According to Elizabeth Pizzinato, SVP for marketing and communications at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, "The Beauty Inside" was a hit because it tied in perfectly to the reason people use social media in the first place: to share their stories with the world.

“The Beauty Inside was an impressive campaign because it leveraged the core element of what makes social media tick: the ability for users to not only share stories, but also to actively participate in an emotional storyline that develops over time," Pizzinato said. "One particularly strong aspect was the campaign’s multilingual capability, the way it intelligently reflected the native language of the participants. This element made for an even more powerful campaign with true global appeal."

In doing so, Intel and Toshiba allowed the public to help them tell a story about an item (the computer chip) that is often difficult to form a narrative around.

Coca-Cola and its agency Leo Burnett earned more than 58 million social media impressions with their "Small World Machines," which were video chat terminals that allowed Pakistanis and Indians to connect with each other in real time. The machines were placed in public spaces in Pakistan and India, and beckoned citizens of the rival nations to virtually touch hands and create visual art by tracing the designs on the touchscreen terminals.

Here's a video of what it looked like:

Coca-Cola Small World Machines - Bringing India & Pakistan Together from Coke Pakistan on Vimeo.

JWT chief creative officer Jeff Benjamin said "Small World Machines" satiated consumer desire to see brands take bold risks and create social good beyond the products they sell to the public. Coca-Cola was one of several brands to make an ad this year about bridging the divide between India and Pakistan, joining a Google ad that highlighted the power of its geolocation and search technologies.

“What I love about this is that there is an opportunity for us as advertisers and marketers to do things that matter," Benjamin said. "We talk a lot about technical innovation, but sometimes there is just an insightful, we’re-just-going-to-matter type of innovation. It’s putting love and heart into the world through brands and making that brand stand for something in a way that it hadn’t before. Brands that matter are the ones that succeed.”

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