Our favourite 5 examples of Valentine’s inspired content marketing

So, you have survived the bleakness of January and we are now in February, with Spring just around the corner things are starting to look up. As I’m sure you are aware, today is Valentine’s Day (also known as Saint Valentine’s Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine).

The debate will rage on for years regarding whether today is about the celebration of love and affection, or whether it has become just another marketing vehicle. As a digital agency, we will be focusing on the latter!

There have been many generic pieces of content rolled out in previous years, women swooning over roses or the unlucky (or lucky, depending on your view!) singles consuming vast amount of ice cream in a tedious Bridget Jones recreation.

At MintTwist however, we have scrawled through scores of old Valentine’s Day content to find some of the more innovative and eye-catching content efforts of years gone by. Here are our favourite 5 – in no particular order from years gone by.

1. Nivea – First Kiss

With the ease in production and consumption of video today, it often feels that very little alternative content is created. Nivea had other ideas however, with their ‘First Kiss’ campaign.

This encouraged Facebook users to share their first kiss stories last Valentine’s Day. Cute. Engaging. Simple. This certainly ticked all the boxes for an effective piece of Valentine’s Day content marketing. This reinforces that content doesn’t necessarily have to be all singing, all dancing with a huge amount of interactive element. It just requires to provoke an emotion & to be seeded correctly.

This particular post in question garnered 13,000 likes and 33 shares. All from a few short, but sweet lines! Not bad eh?

2. Innocent – Love Labels

In 2012, around Valentine’s Day, drink company ‘Innocent’ created the idea of ‘Love Labels’. They asked consumers to pick their partner’s favourite smoothie and create a personalised label. This could be done by writing their own message or choosing existing ones, as well as adding various graphics.

Once finished, they can print the label out and stick it on the bottle – producing a personalised gift for a loved one. Additionally, consumers were encouraged to share their labels on Facebook and Twitter. User Generated content eh? Feels like 2015 all over again. But this really does show that positioned in the right way, it can really work.

This is slightly different to many other Valentine’s Day content pieces, as it moves away from the digital world and inspires a degree of creativity. Unfortunately, the service is no longer available but here is a brief look at what it was all about.

3. Deadpool – Valentines Day

Those of you who have seen Deadpool, will be aware that it hardly fits the romantic comedy stereotype of films typically released in the build up to Valentine’s Day. For those of you who have not seen it, this quote from the snarky Ryan Reynolds will probably shed some light: “Looks ARE everything! Ever heard Dave Beckham speak? It’s like he mouth-sexed a can of helium. You think Ryan Reynolds got this far on a superior acting method?”

So, now we are all aware of the nature of the film, we can all enjoy the amusing Valentine’s Day-friendly marketing campaign that was created. Here is the trailer that formed the basis of the campaign:

4. Match.com & Starbucks – World’s largest Starbucks date

Starbucks and Match.com teamed up in 2015 to offer singles the opportunity to connect over a coffee at Starbucks. The partnership came about after data from Match shows that 3 million of its members list “coffee and conversation” as one of their interests.

These members were able to use a new Meet at Starbucks feature on the app, which allows users to send an email to someone they might like and find a convenient Starbucks location.

Additionally, on February 13^th 2015,  participating Starbucks stores across the globe were involved in the World’s largest Starbucks date. Customers were complemented with in-store experiences which helped to facilitate connection, such as in-store music playlists and photo props to document and share their own #StarbucksDate.

5. Hooters – Shred Your Ex

Advertising agency McKinney teamed up with Hooters to launch the ‘Shred Your Ex’ campaign in the run up to Valentine’s Day 2015. Fans were asked to get in contact via social media; Tweet or Instagram an image of their exes with the hashtag #ShredYourEx and then visit shredyourex.hooters.com to watch a live feed of your photo printing directly into a paper shredder above a digital fire.

Customers who completed this were eligible to a deal on chicken wings on Valentine’s Day. McKinney content manager Renee Montpetit declared that this had been created to bring some fun to singles on what can be a dull day. “Deleting a picture doesn’t give you the same satisfaction as physically destroying it,” she said. “This gives singles that cathartic release in a fun way.”

In case you were wondering what happened to all that shredded paper, it went to a good cause. The shreds were donated to a local animal shelter and used as litter for kittens. Further strong PR work!

This content was hugely successful and as a result is still running, so if you’d like to see kittens relieving themselves on your ex’s face, then I shall just leave this link here…

Seen any examples of Valentines-inspired content marketing this year? Tell us your favourites!