5 Examples of Content Marketing You Should Know

Saphyte Team

4 min read

Updated: June 28th, 2022

Have you ever wondered what successful content marketing campaigns look like? Here are five great examples that we thought you should know.

Content can be used in a lot of ways. They can be used for ads to attract and capture leads, they can be used to engage leads to encourage them to make a purchase, and they can be used to provide valuable information to customers to keep them coming back for more.

Now there are several types of content. There are videos, blogs, articles, ads, infographics, and podcasts, among others. But these five great examples of content marketing should inspire your content marketing campaigns. Let’s get started.

1.  Old Spice’s “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” Campaign

Video is a great way to engage your audience and capture their attention. In fact, in 2022, 86% of marketers say that video has been effective in helping them generate leads. Online videos are also expected to make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2022.

The “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign by Old Spice, which features tongue-in-cheek humor and creativity (and also muscular men like Terry Crews and Isaiah Mustafa), has become a cultural phenomenon. The campaign started in 2010 and in just three days, their first video clocked over 20 million views.

According to P&G, the campaign gained the following results:

Around 105 million YouTube views

1.2 billion earned media impressions

2700% increase in Twitter followers

800% increase in Facebook fan interaction

300% increase in website traffic

Of course, it should be noted that their target audience is the millennials, and the best way to reach them is to use one of their most-used platforms— YouTube.

Learn more about developing a content marketing strategy here.

2.  McDonald’s Minimalist Ingredients List

For this campaign, London-based agency Leo Burnett teamed up with Minneapolis-based designer David Schwen to advertise McDonald’s even without using their logo.

The idea is to just list ingredients in the Helvetica font and not mention the fast-food chain’s name because they’re already “so recognizable that you recognize them without telling you who it’s from.”

The ads demonstrate that McDonald’s is transparent when it comes to its ingredients. A campaign that is highly needed at a time when McDonald’s reputation for using “pink slime” meat fillers is being questioned.

In 2014, McDonald’s ran the “Our Food, Your Questions” (OFYQ) campaign aimed at

providing information about their food on social media. It also released behind-the-scenes videos which feature production processes behind its products.

The campaign was a huge success. And it gained the following stats:

McDonald’s answered over 19,000 questions from their audience

It boasted an average of 4.5 minutes on-site with 12 questions being read

Monthly store visits increased by 50%

Its food quality perception increased significantly

It should be noted that the campaign is comprised of several media— videos, billboards, website content, and social media content, among others. This tells us that content marketing can have a maximum impact on a business if it uses the right medium for communication.

3.  Spotify’s Wrapped

Spotify launched the Wrapped campaign in 2017, which provides a customized playlist based on users’ data. The campaign worked so well because it was personalized and because many people shared their Wrapped playlist on social media, which boosted the brand’s awareness and engagement stats.

The campaign also gained the following stats:

21% increase in app sign-ups

Earned almost 3 billion streams from Wrapped playlists alone (2019)

The campaign itself was mentioned in at least 1.2 million posts on Twitter

4.  Apple’s Shot on an iPhone

The Shot on an iPhone campaign is a user-driven campaign that encourages users and loyal customers to take quality photos using iPhones. The campaign sends a message that the average customer can make art like the professionals, using a gadget as simple as their iPhone.

The campaign included a challenge that invited users from around the world to submit their best photos using the hashtag #ShotoniPhone. Photos from the campaign were then promoted on billboards, newspapers, magazines, online, and in 15-second TV commercials. They instantly took traction on social media.

It’s easy to say that the campaign was successful. Early on, the Shot on an iPhone campaign gained the following stats:

Mentioned by 24,000 opinion leaders

An estimated 6.5 billion media impressions, with 95% positive mentions

On Instagram, over 16 million mentions using the #ShotoniPhone hashtag

5.  Wordle by The New York Times

New York Times’ Wordle became viral in December last year. The game is simple: users have six chances to guess a five-letter word and can only play the game once a day.

Wordle keeps track of your winning streak— which encourages users to post and brag about their daily wins on social media. This made it easy for the game to be an instant hit across platforms (but mainly on Twitter, comprising 98.6% of all mentions).

The acquisition of Wordle by the New York Times was aimed to drive subscriptions to NYT’s newsletters and widen its audience for more lucrative ad spaces, one of its major sources of revenue.

Recently, Wordle gained the following stats:

Over 10 million organic views of the page

Over 170k backlinks as of April 2022

Over 26.2k mentions from brands on Twitter alone

Brought tens of millions of new users to The Times

Conclusion

Content marketing can be done in so many ways. Don’t be straitjacketed by rules. Of course, there’ll be ups and downs, and a campaign that worked for one business may not work for another. What’s important is knowing what went wrong and learning from your mistakes so you can improve and optimize your campaigns for better results.

Interested in improving your marketing? Get started here.