Inspiration: digital Easter campaigns to learn from

From innovative egg puns to chocolate beer mugs and virtual egg hunts: if there’s ever a time for brands to get seriously creative, it’s the Easter holidays. While tapping into seasonal trends is always a quick win for marketing departments, there’s just something about this time of year (is it the sun? is it the unlimited chocolate?) that makes people want to celebrate. Still planning your campaign and in need of some last-minute inspiration? Here’s an overview of our 5 favourite Easter campaigns from the last few years.

Deliveroo’s Feaster Egg Hunt

What’s better than ordering food to your front door? You guessed it: ordering more food to your front door, for free. Knowing full well what their customers want, Deliveroo launched a festive Easter giveaway last year. All UK customers ordering from over a 1000 different restaurants during the Easter weekend automatically entered the competition, with winning orders receiving secret feaster egg scratch cards with values ranging from £2.50 to £1000. That’s one way to keep customers from cooking their own Easter feast!

#IfCarlsbergDid chocolate bars

Three years ago, beer brand Carlsberg showed the world what it means to think outside the box. Bringing a fully functioning pop-up bar entirely made out of chocolate to Shoreditch, the brand presented their own take on the universally loved ‘chocolate bar’. Passers-by were invited to go in and help themselves to a complimentary beer – glugged out of a chocolate mug, of course. Though essentially an offline event meant to broaden the appeal and reach of the Carlsberg brand, the bar also attracted a high level of social engagement.

Thorntons’ Ultimate Guide to Easter Eggs

2016 was also when Thorntons came up with this cracker of a campaign. Taking online content to a whole new level, the British chocolate brand collaborated with software company Cogent to provide comprehensive insights into the chocolate-making process. The ‘Ultimate Guide to Easter Egg’ was initially created to boost search visibility, but as the brand also wanted to offer their customers an exciting digital experience they decided to marry the two.

The interactive, CGI driven chocolate factory allowed online customers to take a sneak peek into the brand’s very own workshop. Complemented by a campaign page optimized with seasonal trends, behind-the-scenes imagery, fun chocolate facts and profiles of loyal staff members, the ambitious campaign page soon turned out an immense success: over 15,000 users interacted with the content and overall search visibility jumped by 2%.

Cadbury #EggsEverywhere

Though you’d think Cadbury doesn’t need to go crazy to get attention around this time of year, they take Easter very serious indeed. In 2016, the brand started building up excitement for their favourite holiday extra early by dropping three giant easter eggs into the Loch Ness. Making it look like the area’s mystery monster is slowly coming out of the water, the stunt quickly started attracting attention from tourists and media alike. A social media whirlwind followed and as a result, 1 in 3 of all chocolate eggs sold in the UK that year was Cadbury’s.

Mashable’s #CraftyEggs

Our fifth and last favourite campaign is a very strong example of how to encourage user-generated content. An efficient strategy as you’re virtually letting your customers take care of your online content, actually making people do it can be a bit of a challenge. Mashable got it right, however, by encouraging people to share a snappy video of their Easter egg decorations. Using #CraftyEggs, crafters throughout the country started sharing their colourful creations, with the best ones being featured in a Mashable wrap-up blog post. A great way to boost social engagement, brand awareness and website traffic!

So what can we learn from these successful campaigns? These are our takeaways:

• First of all, add value. Give your customers a good deal or come up with an experience that they can really get something out of, whether it’s a free beer or an activity.
• Second, stay close to your brand identity. We understand that all brands want a piece of the Easter pie, but if your brand has got nothing to do with chocolate or eggs, you’ll have to think of something a bit more original.
• Finally, be holistic in your approach. Don’t focus on one channel, but make sure your campaign is suitable for offline, online and social purposes all at once. The impact will simply be much bigger that way.

Good luck! And do let us know what you think of our selection. Perhaps you think we missed out on one? We’d love to hear from you.