Our Top 5 Easter Marketing Campaigns

Easter provides a great chance for brands to get creative with their marketing. While a lot of businesses find their sales have slumped following the pre-Christmas rush, the festivity, frivolity and four-day weekend that Easter brings makes April the perfect time to get back on even keel.

However, there also tends to be a lot of noise in the market at this time of the year, making it hard for you to make yourself heard. Struggling for original ideas to help you stand out from the crowd this Easter? Here are our top 5 Easter marketing campaigns to inspire you, all of which have had eggcellent (sorry!) results:

Cadbury’s

It makes sense to start this list with the Godfather of Easter eggs and all things chocolatey – Cadbury’s. Granted, their product means that it’s fairly easy for them to create powerful and resonant campaigns at this time of year, and having been around since 1824, they have an iconic status in the confectionary industry that’s pretty hard to beat.

However, the chocolate market – despite its sugary sweetness – is fiercely competitive, so Cadbury’s have to deliver innovative and memorable campaigns year after year. In 2014, they teamed up with the National Trust to host Easter egg hunts at over 300 National Trust locations across the country. This interactivity and real world brand activation meant that Cadbury’s cleverly tapped into the need for Easter holiday activities for kids, and used this as a natural platform to promote Cadbury’s products.

Tesco

In 2013, Tesco used the childlike joy and nostalgia we feel around Easter time in their #findtheeggs social campaign. As we’ve already seen, the Easter egg hunt theme is not a particularly unique one, but the execution of this particular campaign set it apart from the rest.

Tesco used Google Street View to allow consumers to hunt around their local streets for eggs, with a massive 50,000 prizes available. These included chocolate eggs (obviously) but also golden eggs, which signified even bigger goodies, such as mobile phones and tablets.

All fun and games, but what was the thinking behind the campaign, and what did it do for Tesco? According to Jude Brooks, Head of Social Communities and Insight:

customers loved Pull-a-Cracker at Christmas, so for Easter we wanted to find another way to bring people together online to join in the fun.”

And “fun” is the operative word here – the hunt helped to enhance Tesco’s image as a brand in tune with its customers, and always up for a bit of silliness.

Asda

The third of our top 5 Easter marketing campaigns is Asda. In 2014, Asda took a slightly different tact to Tesco and swapped cute traditions for cute animals. A social media campaign combined successfully with a TV advert showed fluffy yellow chicks representing the UK’s top supermarkets. To differentiate themselves as being pioneers of low-cost quality, the Asda chick dances along to the beat of Funky Town. Fluffiness and humour gave the ad viral potential, which was compounded by the #asdachick hashtag being used across social media.

Asda also anchored the campaign to their products, championing themed items such as bunny-shaped crumpets, line-caught cod and grass-fed lamb in their stores.

Lindt

Swiss chocolate manufacturer Lindt’s whole image is based around Easter (think golden bunny with red bow around its neck), so they really come into their own at Easter time. However much like Cadbury’s, they need to constantly create new ideas to keep themselves fresh in consumer’s minds.

In 2014, Lindt hosted a brand activation event in Bluewater shopping centre – featuring hidden treats, giant gold rabbits and fun activities for children. The lucky person who guessed where the Head Gardener hid the giant carrot stood a chance of winning a 1kg Lindt bunny (which is a sentence we never thought we’d say)!

Alongside a number of other interactive events throughout the country, the campaign was a resounding success, maintaining Lindt’s positive brand image and resulting in 4 million of their target market being engaged across all venues.

Heineken

To finish off our list, we’re keeping it fair by including a brand not regularly associated with Easter at all; Dutch beer brand, Heineken.Experimenting with the iconic beer bottle shape, the press advert shows the bottle to be made out of chocolate, with the packaging as foil around the outside. Playing with our expectations and preconceptions, Heineken’s clever ad proves that you don’t need to be an iconic confectioner or a big supermarket to get in on the Easter marketing action.

Experimenting with the iconic beer bottle shape, the press advert shows the bottle to be made out of chocolate, with the packaging as foil around the outside. Playing with our expectations and preconceptions, Heineken’s clever ad proves that you don’t need to be an iconic confectioner or a big supermarket to get in on the Easter marketing action.


Clever Marketing - Digital Marketing Agency in Hampshire, Surrey and Berkshire. So, those were our top 5 Easter marketing campaigns. Need some ideas or help with yours? Maybe some extra SEO services or PPC ads to give it a boost?

Give Clever Marketing a call on 01276 402 381 and speak with us about your annual report specification or complete our contact form.

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.