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The year 2019 provided tons of opportunities for brands to partner with influencers all over the world and create campaigns that had huge success. Social apps like YouTube and Twitter are certainly going steady, but Instagram really took over just about every industry you can think of through influencer marketing campaigns. Keep reading to dive into ten campaigns from brands new and old who effectively took over their individual markets.
Hulu
With streaming services on the rise and cable on the way out, Hulu’s campaign #HuluSellsOut launched to catch up with Netflix and Amazon, their two biggest competitors in the industry. In 2018, Hulu’s subscribers increased by 8 million, so this year’s influencer marketing campaign meant for keeping that growth steady.
The campaign lets Hulu’s audience know that they’re taking a comedic claim of the fact that they’re an underdog in numbers, but not by too much. Their campaign starts with these star athletes to promote their service of live TV:
- De’Aaron Fox– 1.3M followers
- Josh Okogie– 83.5K followers
- Joel Embiid– 3.8M followers
- Emily Sonnett– 186K followers
To reach sports fans and push Hulu’s live sports offerings, the campaign stretched across 19 athlete’s Instagram profiles, focusing on the NBA and Women’s National Soccer Team. The athlete influencers used four hashtags predominantly: #HuluHasLiveSports, #TeamHuluSellouts, #HuluSellouts, and #HuluHasLiveSportsChallenge.
The results of the campaign were very successful, with over 17 million Instagram followers targeted and an overall average engagement rate of 5.71%.
Fabletics
Kate Hudson’s activewear brand launched a campaign to encourage Fabletics ambassadors to get out and get active through a large series of Instagram posts. The company aimed to reach an active audience through influencers offering their workout and lifestyle tips, in combination with their own experiences and struggles.
Using the hashtags #MyFabletics and #KickButtLookCute, Fabletics was able to raise brand awareness and communicate the brand’s values. These influencers posted photos in their Fabletics gear, sharing a variety of personal advice and quotes inspiring followers to get active:
- Michele Nicole– 6.9K followers
- Sarah Vadnais– 4K followers
- Frances Flores– 19.9K followers
- Madison Fichtl– 25.4K followers
For this influencer marketing campaign, Fabletics used a group of 12 female fitness, fashion, and lifestyle influencers that represented a range of diverse ethnicities, styles, and body types. Over 177,000 Instagram followers were reached with an engagement rate of over 9.41%.
Adidas
Gender barriers have been gradually dropping across all sports and, with their most recent campaign, Adidas didn’t stop the momentum. ‘She Breaks Barriers’ was an initiative Adidas announced to expand on #CreatorsUnite, which was launched previously. This campaign aimed to promote the coverage and inclusion of women in sports across the world.
The campaign was launched through a YouTube video that highlights the barriers that women and girls are facing in sports and invites everyone to level the playing field of sports.
The campaign features a reel of films highlighting female athletes, their stories, and providing hope to young women. Athletes like WNBA player Layshia Clarendon, world-class hurdler Keni Harrison, and Olympic gold medalist Becky Sauerbrunn star in this campaign’s films.
Each video from the influencer marketing campaign averaged anywhere between 40,000 and all the way up to 1.8 million views, with the top video being: She Breaks Barriers: More Visibility. Bigger Dreams.
Gymshark
A brand known for its stylish and super sleek athletic wear, Gymshark launched its campaign on the very first day of the year, kicking off 2019 in the best way. “66 Days | Change Your Life” was a challenge that was prompted by the brand’s idea that a habit is formed in 66 days.
The goal of their influencer marketing campaign was not only to encourage fans and followers to play along in their own personal challenge but to also create an active connection and stream of engagement between the company and their fans.
Using TikTok as the challenge’s main platform, Gymshark had six influencers ranging from health, fitness, dance, and lifestyle categories. These influencers were:
- Wilking Sisters– 1.9M followers
- Rybka Twins– 8.6M followers
- Laurie Elle– 3.5M followers
- Twin Melody– 10.4M followers
- Lesotwins– 1.7M followers
- Antonie Lokhorst– 4.2M followers
The fans on TikTok reached over 19.8 million with an overall average engagement rate of 11.11%. Plus, the hashtag #gymshark66 reached 45.5 million views.
Away
The luggage industry started booming with the entrance of the company Away into the market, bringing it’s travel goods directly to their consumers. And with their campaign #TravelAway, the travel brand isn’t stopping any time soon.
The campaign aimed to partner with celebrities and lifestyle internships to raise brand awareness and encourage engagement through relatable and stylish travel content. The brand worked with 13 travel, lifestyle, and fashion influencers across Instagram. Personalities that took part in this campaign were:
- Phil Cohen– 768K followers
- Hegia de Boer– 177K followers
- Marlene Lee– 65.1K followers
- The Layover Life– 33.2K followers
The campaign racked in an overall average engagement rate of 5.22% and targeted over 1.1 million Instagram followers.
Snapchat
We all know and love Snapchat, but the app has been having trouble over the past few years keeping up with its competitors. Snapchat’s #RealFriends campaign aimed to win back their users and focus the app’s usage on “real” life.
Snap teamed up with influencers as a promotion of Snapchat for sharing real moments, instead of “looking pretty or perfect.” Their approach was straight forward and they used 75 influencers, all of which have accounts known for sharing quotes and inspirational words. These quote influencers played a big role in Snap’s campaign:
- @quotesbychristie– 181K followers
- @poemsporn_– 3M followers
- @themidnightscribblers– 197K followers
Snapchats influencer marketing campaign reached over 13.8 million Instagram followers and an overall average engagement rate of 1.25%.
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Absolut Vodka
Labeling their brand as ‘Coachella’s Official Vodka, Absolut Vodka used their Plant Tent at Coachella 2019 to promote itself as ‘Planet Earth’s Favorite Vodka.’ The well-known brand had their influencers serving looks and promoting awareness as well as their notable feature of being a sustainable brand.
In partnerships with influencers such as Bachelor in Paradise star Dean Unglert, travel icon Aggie Lal, and lifestyle influencer Gregory Velvet, Absolut created waves with their set up at the popular music festival. Influencers posted their promoted content of hanging by the bar, videos of the Plant Tent party, and grabbing drinks with fellow big names.
The festival-goers used two specific hashtags that captured this influencer marketing campaign perfectly: #AbsolutCoachella, #sustainability. Although the primary hashtag has only 449 uses, the top posts include engagements of over 50,000 likes and 176,000 views on promoted videos.
Levi’s
The denim company, well known for their classic and timeless pieces, Levi’s made a splash at Coachella as well. With their influencer marketing campaign #LiveInLevis being a year-round promotion of brand awareness, the brand was able to reach tons of huge celebs and influencers for the festival season.
These were some big names that Levi’s featured on their Instagram page throughout the festival weekend:
- Hailey Bieber– 23.8M followers
- Snoop Dogg– 37.2M followers
- Alexis Ren– 13.6M followers
Even more names were featured through a Levi’s-promoted Instagram video that wrapped up the fun, summer, and festival vibes of all these celebs and influencers at Levi’s Neon Carnival.
Their stint at Coachella was used as a Design Lab, allowing their influencer marketing campaign to encourage their partners to try on different Levi’s pieces and inspire their followers on how to style pieces outside of their staple pieces. The overall campaign has over 395,000 posts (plus stories!) on Instagram and is used by micro and macro influencers just about every single day.
Coca Cola
The beloved soft drink, Coca Cola, cracked open a can of emotions for their influencer marketing campaign that came just in time for World Kindness Day this year. Their campaign highlighted artist influencers on Instagram and promoted the simple phrase #KindnessStartsWith.
Coke partnered with these artists to create original images that were inspired by the soda drink, focusing on kindness. Artists included graphic designs, handwritten quotes, and even some songs personalized just for the campaign.
An absolute success story, Coke’s kindness campaign reached 330 million impressions on Twitter and nearly 170,000 tweets as well.
Urban Decay
Urban Decay is one of the most popular makeup brands internationally and with their recent influencer marketing campaign, their growth isn’t stopping anytime soon. The campaign Pretty Different, represents the brand’s celebration of individuality and their idea of having fun with makeup in an unapologetic and personal way.
The well-known celebrities and influencers that participated as the main spokespeople of this campaign were:
These three, along with Karol G and CL, starred in the video that launched Urban Decay’s campaign to promote originality and personality in expressing oneself through the use of fun and exciting makeup, without judgment.
Using the hashtag #PrettyDifferent and a series of ongoing photos and videos, these five main influencers have built up brand awareness for Urban Decay across just about all platforms. A YouTube video was released to help launch the campaign, which has since received over 600,000 views and 2,000 likes. The hashtag of the influencer marketing campaign has since received over 9,000 posts on Instagram, with uses from the Urban Decay Instagram account as well as their Global Citizens’ accounts.
