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12 February 2012

Branding Love - Creative Valentine's Day Campaigns

Valentine's Day - or, as men like to call it, Extortion Day! ~ Jay Leno

If it's a holiday/event/occasion recognised by the masses then chances are us marketers will make it an advertising campaign. In fact, the more cynical would have you believe that Valentine's Day itself was created by chocolate, flower and card selling companies to create additional revenue - along with those other suspect occasions Mother's Day, Father's Day and Boxing Day. 

I'm not complaining though - by now you've probably picked up that I like ads - and therefore applaud any occasion that inspires more advertising creativity (and perhaps ends up getting me flowers!). 

I've gathered a few samples of the most creative Valentine's Day ads this year - take a look and tell me your favourite! Or if you think advertisers should leave love well alone! 


Heineken's Serenade 
The Serenade app builds on Heineken's "The Date" - part of the brand's "Open Your World" global campaign. The app allows users to customise a Valentine's serenade to a Facebook friend. You get to choose "who" you want to ask out, "why" you want to go out with them, "what" the legendary date will entail and of course "why" they should say yes. The details are then incorporated into a song that can be sent to the lucky valentine.


You can create your own serenade on Heineken's Facebook page


Kraft "Golden Voice of Love"
Kraft's latest campaign for Macaroni Cheese is "You know you love it" and to help spread the love they've come up with a unique Valentine's Twitter campaign. 

Every message of love shared on Twitter between 12th-14th February tagged with #VoiceOfLove will be sent to Ted Williams. Williams is the homeless man with the golden voice who shot to YouTube fame in early 2011. A number of these tweets will be chosen to be read out by Williams as part of a Kraft video. 


There's also a philanthropic component to the campaign - further sharing the love - every #VoiceOfLove tweet will trigger a donation of 100 boxes of Mac & Cheese to Feeding America, a homeless advocacy group. Kraft will give up to a 100,000 boxes this Valentine's Day. You can follow Kraft and the campaign on Twitter. They also have a number of cute cartoons (like left) under Valenshares on their Facebook page.




Envied on Popsop


Wilkinson Smooth Valentines 
No explanation needed, just made me laugh. 






Field Notes Love Notebook 
The video has been created to promote the Red Blooded notebook which has been recently added to the Field Notes standard product line. Very cute, if not a little manufactured. 



Envied at Adverblog 


Westfield Love Billboards 
Westfield New Zealand ran a competition to have your love note emblazoned on 2m high billboard (and a chance to win a $5,999 diamond ring). 12 billboards around NZ were unveiled on Valentine's Day - the full entries can be viewed at  Stoppress.  


One of the winning billboards that was unveiled in Auckland


Teleflora Super Bowl Ad 
Even the most watched sports event in the world is not immune to Valentine's Day - Teleflora uses the beautiful Adriana Lima to convince the male audience that Valentine's Day is all a game of 'give and take'. Sex sells right? 




Starbucks Cup Magic 
Starbucks is bringing back their 'magic cups' which appeared last Christmas. The app uses augmented reality to animate Valentine's Day cups.   



What's you favourite of these Valentine's Day campaigns?

Do you love when brands get involved in love?




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