Valentine’s Day is on the horizon. For brands and businesses, it’s actually considered one of the most profitable occasions of the year!
It arrives at the perfect time. In the aftermath of Christmas and the January blues creeping in, once we hit February, consumers who have been feeling the effects of a tight purse, start to slowly ease into a new month. Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity to give your brand a much-needed revenue boost and re-engage shoppers, so if you’re not taking advantage of it already, you definitely should be!
We’ve picked out some of the top Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns from last year to give you some much-needed inspiration!
Divert - Name a Bin Lorry after Your Ex
Waste management service Divert took their Valentine’s Day campaign in an unexpected direction. Their campaign allowed members of the public to name a rubbish lorry after ex-partners. When visiting their website, you could input your ex's name to be shown on the bin lorry, which was then driven around the city.And unsurprisingly, a lot of people opted in for a bit of revenge.
Not only that, they also came up with the ultimate post-relationship purge by offering to collect all the stuff left behind by exes, and as a Valentine's treat also provided prosecco and chocolates!
Lindt - Break in Case of Emergency
Lindt Chocolate knows all too well the last-minute rush to buy a Valentine’s Day present. So, as a chocolate brand, it only makes sense for them to capitalise on that.
Last year, their innovative campaign acted as a reminder to get that someone special a gift (and probably saved a fair few arguments).
Across the UK, Lindt created emergency pop-up stands. These “Break for Emergency Bliss” boxes featured their brand new Blood Orange Lindt Lindor chocolates, and they partnered with influencers such as Love Island’s Davide Sanclimente to enhance the awareness of the campaign!
McDonald’s - Know Their Order
McDonald's took their Valentine’s campaign to the Super Bowl! Creating a personable and relatable campaign message, the advert featured couples (including celebrities such as Cardi B and Offset) who thought about recalling their partner's McDonald’s orders and relived any experiences they had of it. It was a simple campaign but proved to be a good conversation topic, with people commenting their own McDonald’s orders across social media, and was an overall successful marketing piece.
Cadbury Silk - Gifts You Can Interact With
Chocolate and Valentine’s Day have been synonymous for decades, and it’s estimated that over 57% of consumers are expected to gift their other half some form of sweet treat. Cadbury Silk created a campaign around playing cupid, offering ‘unforgettable love tips’ via a QR code that could be found on their Heart Blush packets. The campaign worked well because there was an element of offering customers that little something extra and there’s the added anticipation of wanting to know what the tips would be!
Yankee Candle - Support a Good Cause
Yankee Candle released their newest fragrance right before Valentine’s Day titled ‘Love for All’. The LGBTQ+ inspired collection was released over the Valentine’s period and into June, which is recognised worldwide as pride month.
As part of the campaign, Yankee donated profits to Rainbow Road, an organisation which helps LGBTQ+ members in danger to get to safety all across the world. The campaign gained lots of traction across the social sphere and as well as spotlighting a non-profit organisation, it raised a lot of awareness for the LGBTQ+ community!
La Vie - It’s Not You, It’s Meat
Vegetarian brand, La Vie, gave their customers the chance to ‘break up with meat’ - guilt-free. With the slogan, ‘it’s not you, it’s meat’, meat eaters were encouraged to ditch their ‘toxic’ relationship with animal products for good. La Vie executed the campaign in a really effective way, using the format of breakup letters to grab consumers' attention!
Specsavers - Don’t Let Specs Get in the Way
Specsavers are known for their out-of-the-box marketing campaigns. For Valentine’s Day, the eyewear brand offered its customers a one-week trial of contact lenses by promoting the awkwardness of attempting to kiss with glasses. Why did it work so well? Specsavers have consistently marketed themselves as a relatable, customer-first brand, and using a simple but quirky approach to Valentine’s Day only put them on the map further. A real stand-out campaign!
With so many strong campaigns from 2023, it’ll be a hard one to beat this year, but we’re sure there will be some top-tier Valentine’s campaigns flying about in 2024, too.
Looking to get ahead of your Valentine’s Day strategy? Why not get in touch with us or fill out our FREE audit to find out what we could do for you?
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