The 5 Best Influencer Marketing Campaigns We’ve Ever Seen

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The average person spends a whopping 2.5 hours every day on social media. And with 3.78 billion social media users across the globe, that’s a whole lot of eyes on screens. 

Many brands are deciding to take advantage of the amount of time people spend following other people on social media. They’re tapping into the millions of followers that influencers have amassed. 

Those followers are loyal to the influencers and paying attention to what they have to say. It’s the reason many brands are seeking an influencer marketing agency so they can connect with the big audience through the influencers. 

Read on to learn more influencer marketing strategies and what makes the best influencer marketing campaigns.

What Is Influencer Marketing?

Let’s start by understanding what happens during social media influencer marketing. 

An influencer is a person who has a large and faithful social media following. Their role is to mention and share products with their followers in an effort to influence their buying habits. 

During the best influencer marketing campaigns what happens is that the brand partners with an influencer. The influencer acts as a marketing agent for the brand by using the product or mentioning the product for their followers to see. Sometimes an influencer will discuss the product and share their thoughts in an effort to get their masses interested in the product too.

This marketing strategy works because the influencers have followers who listen to them as experts and trusted sources of information. The brand can reach all those followers with a relatively low advertising cost and the influencer makes money for the brand. In the best influencer campaigns, it’s a win for everyone involved. 

What Makes a Good Influencer Campaign?

What do the best influencer campaigns have in common? They have managed to capture the right combination of influencer and product to get noticed. 

When you plan to use an influencer for marketing, you want to choose a person who has followers in your niche. Choosing the wrong influencer can mean they’re talking about your message or product to followers who might not be interested. 

The best campaigns have the influencer doing something that gets them noticed, there’s a wow factor. It’s also important for the influencer to be authentic and make a strong connection with the people who follow them. 

Let’s take a closer look at five of the most successful influencer marketing examples and what makes them work. 

1. Chubbies Shorts

Chubbies is a brand of shorts and other clothing items that recognized their target audience and used influencers to reach them in a big way.

The brand understands those who wear are interested in fun and adventure while still feeling laid back and cool at the same time. The brand used influencers to show how their brand of clothing items, specifically their shorts at first, fit with this lifestyle. 

They connected with influencers who wore their shorts on the beach while having a fun, vibe filled experience. The brand had guys sharing photos wearing their clothing showing the ultimate in bro-based shenanigans.

Why did this brand have such a successful campaign?

They knew their target audience better than anyone. They understood who they as a brand wanted to reach and found the influencers who could do that for them successfully. Then they had those influencers sharing photos using their clothing touting a true lifestyle. 

When you wear Chubbies shorts your life can be about fun, being cool, hanging with your friends and being really hip while doing it. Their campaign was about touting a lifestyle when you wear their brand and the followers of the influencers successfully connected with it. 

2. Airbnb

Airbnb had an idea and it seemed like a good one. Yet, as a brand starting out they struggled to get financing. That is, of course, until they figured out how to sell a lifestyle using a whole host of celebrity and big-named influencers on Instagram to share their brand. 

In less than a decade, Airbnb went from being a struggling startup idea to reaching billions by using celebrity influencers in locales across the globe. 

So, how did Airbnb create a successful campaign? They showed off celebrities at their featured properties having the time of their life and thanking Airbnb for helping them to enjoy such exotic and interesting locations. 

For example, in one of their first posts, they have Mariah Carey posing on a beachfront patio in Malibu, smiling and waving and looking generally thrilled with life. In her post, she thanks Airbnb for the experience. 

Airbnb is different from some brands in that they don’t use micro-influencers. Instead, they use big-name celebrities and influencers who have huge followings. They use the celebrities at an interesting location or big events to tout using their product, the available properties.

In one campaign they have Lady Gaga at an Airbnb property around the Super Bowl. It doesn’t get much bigger than Gaga and the Super Bowl together. 

3. Lagavulin Distillery 

What do you do if you’re a small whiskey distillery and want to become a big recognized brand? You use a fictional character, Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation to tout your brand of whiskey, of course. 

Lagavulin created a campaign where the star Nick Offerman played Ron Swanson and they released the “Offerman Edition” Lagavulin Islay Single Malt Scotch Whiskey. Almost instantly they were getting recognized and written about by whiskey aficionados from all over.

How did they start their campaign? It was a unique and some might say risky approach. Nick Offerman sat in character as Ron Swanson next to a roaring fire sipping his Lagavulin whiskey. There was no dialogue. No call to action to buy the product. It was Ron Swanson enjoying a whiskey and a roaring, crackling fire for sound. 

Because the character was so well recognized and in fact, the campaign so unique it got millions of views. Soon, whiskey experts started to discuss the brand and the campaign. Then Nick Offerman continued to drink whiskey and share gaining the brand meteoric notice. 

4. HelloFresh

HelloFresh has done a few things right in using influencer marketing. First, they have a very photogenic product. They have a brightly coloured green box that their product arrives in. Once prepared the food is pretty and looks delish. 

HelloFresh has used influencer marketing successfully in several ways. 

HelloFresh has embraced the micro-influencer and is flooding the market with its product and name. You can scroll on Instagram and find influencer after influencer making and sharing their delicious meals. 

There’s the influencer in their photo pretty kitchens with laid out pre-packaged and easy to use ingredients. Then with the snap of their fingers, they’ve created photo-worthy meals. And of course, they share savings codes so you too can take advantage of having a HelloFresh meal at the ready in your kitchen too. 

But HelloFresh didn’t limit their influencer campaign to just micro-influencers. Instead, they also brought in some celebrities too. In their most recent partnership, they worked with celebrity actress and busy mom Mindy Kaling. 

Kaling is featured in a four-video series called Meals With Mindy. Mindy uses her acting skills and comedic timing while cooking a HelloFresh meal and talking about it with viewers. Then she shares how viewers can also take advantage of the ease of a HelloFresh meal too.

The brand has been successful because they know their audience and use both types of influencers to connect with other busy mothers who feel the pain of having to come up with something for dinner every night. All influencers use a special code to share with their followers which allows HelloFresh to easily track the success of each individual campaign.

5. Biossance X Jonathan Van Ness

Biossance is a sustainable skincare brand. They used Jonathan Van Ness of Queer Eye and Gay of Thrones fame to help promote their brand sustainable beauty products. 

He’s already recognized as an expert in the field of beauty because of his role on Queer Eye. He’s not only a very popular television personality but he also represents inclusivity. This is a mindset that is part of the core values of the brand. 

Jonathan Van Ness was a great choice for Biossance for many reasons. First, he is an expert in the field of beauty. He also has millions of followers with an extremely high rate of engagement. 

You might think with big numbers, he’d be great for any brand. In fact, he’s been highly protective of his branding personality. He is a perfect fit for Biossance because of his expert status with beauty and his strong message about inclusivity. His passion for the product shines when he talks about it and shows it being used. 

Get the Help You Need From an Influence Marketing Agency

The truth is that using an influencer for a marketing campaign is a way to reach many faithful listening followers. The influencers have the audience they do because people believe they’re authentic and want to hear what they have to say.  

If you’re interested in learning more from an influencer marketing agency, we can help. Contact us today to learn more about influencer marketing campaign ideas for your brand.