4 Unique Influencer Campaigns You Can Use for Inspiration

Influencer Marketing has exploded in popularity in recent years as advertising agencies and public relations firms have scrambled to find trending social media personalities to help promote their clients campaigns. The term has also become a buzzword for marketers and social media managers alike.

But how can a business separate themselves from their competition with their influencer marketing campaign? Does every campaign need to involve influencers with millions of followers in order to be successful?

Learn the answers to these questions as well as how some brands are utilizing unique  influencer campaigns to get results in creative ways.


1. Tom’s of Maine – The Micro Influencer Effect

The term micro-influencer gets tossed around a lot in the marketing and PR space.

In short, a micro-influencer is a person who is very influential in a particular space or community and possesses an online following that consists of people that are interested in a specific kind of content. These types of influencers don’t necessarily have the largest followings online, but often times they will have loyal followers who consistently engage with their social media posts (think quality over quantity).

Tom’s of Maine recognized the potential in the micro-influencer space. They launched a campaign in which lifestyle-based micro-influencers posted pictures with Tom’s toiletry products on Instagram; in the captions of these posts, they encouraged their followers to post their own pictures with their favorite Tom’s of Maine products.

The campaign was wildly successful as it reached roughly 4.4 million potential customers within the first 3 months of the campaign.

This example of micro-influencer reach shows the power of the smaller players in the space. You don’t need to recruit major influencers and have huge marketing budgets to launch these kinds of campaigns.

For brands that are smaller than Tom’s of Maine, it might be a good idea to look at micro-influencers that are popular locally. Having well-known, local social media personalities promote a product or service can generate interest and potential customers to a small business that doesn’t have the need or a budget for traditional advertising, and they can also help drive traffic to an online store.

2. Dunkin Donuts – Celebrate the Holiday!

Dunkin Donuts used the holiday season to increase engagement with their brand.

If you’re thinking about the winter holiday season that includes Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc., you’re thinking about the wrong one.

For Dunkin Donuts, their holiday season comes in the late spring, when National Donut Day is celebrated on June 7. The brand partnered with Collab, a digital talent network, to create a nation-wide Snapchat campaign featuring eight popular influencers that were tasked with creating and distributing teaser content for a special offer that Dunkin Donuts was looking to promote in the days leading up to the holiday.

These same influencers then ran the Dunkin’ Donuts Snapchat account on National Donut Day from three different cities. The content that the influencers created drove their personal supporters to the Dunkin’ Donut Stores to take advantage of the special offer.

Dunkin’ Donuts also created custom Snapchat Geofilters which customers used in-store. When the followers of these influencers posted stories with the geofilters, they were inadvertently providing free advertising for Dunkin Donuts as all of their own followers would then see the brand’s logo.

When it was all said and done, Dunkin’ Donuts had gained more followers on Snapchat channel on National Donut Day alone than they typically would gain in a month. The campaign reached 3 million people and recorded 40,000 instances of engagement.

There are two key takeaways from Dunkin’s approach to influencer marketing. First, it is important to highlight how the brand took advantage of the “holiday.” There are countless “holidays” for different kinds of products, services, occupations, etc – brands of all sizes should be looking to take advantage of them! If you run a bakery, February 20 should be circled on your calendar (National Muffin Day). If you are involved in financial investments, National Savings Day (October 20) could be a great day to launch an influencer campaign promoting your services!

Secondly, the power of Snapchat really helped Dunkin as they used influencers to create an advertising campaign that grew exponentially as the followers of said influencers got involved. If you are considering an influencer campaign in the near future, Snapchat is a great medium to use.

3. Lagavulin – A Whole Lot of Nothing for a Good Amount of Something

Lagavulin is a brand that was well recognized by whiskey connoisseurs, but didn’t really have a presence among casual drinkers. In an interesting decision, the company featured comedian Nick Offerman in a 45 minute promotional video.

Offerman played the gritty and hilarious Ron Swanson on the sitcom Parks and Rec. Here, he musters up some of the characteristics that made Swanson a hysterical hit on the show as he sits in silence for the entirety of the video. He calmly sips a glass of Lagavulin next to a cackling fire throughout the clip.

Offerman was a great choice for the absurdly long video as his demeanor resonates well with the general public’s perception of what whiskey drinkers are supposed to be: gritty, tough, and reserved. The length of the video makes for a hilarious undertone, and it makes the audience feel as though they are part of a larger community for understanding the reasons for Offerman’s presence in the video.

Lagavulin’s approach reinforces the quality over quantity aspect to influencer marketing – sometimes, it’s all about finding the right influencer for your audience, not the most popular.

4. Daniel Wellington – Cute dogs! By the way, Nice Watch!

Swedish watch company Daniel Wellington was aware of this well-known fact, and used it to promote their newest releases. The brand teamed up with an account that goes by the handle @CanadianBros to accomplish this.

The Canadian Bros account regularly features two dogs named Jasper and Louie. In this campaign, the account managers would take pictures with both Daniel Wellington watches and the adorable dogs in frame. This would allow for Daniel Wellington to receive some exposure in a new market.

Cute animals, pictures of food, and beautiful vacation destinations are just a few examples of visually stimulating content that makes users stop scrolling and gaze at the content on their screens. By putting their products in frame alongside two adorable dogs, Daniel Wellington was able to place their watches in a place where they were bound to be seen by thousands of Instagram users.

Like we said before, influencer marketing often comes down to quality over quantity. Influencers can come in all shapes and sizes, whether they are major celebrities or micro-influencers that have strong pull in smaller communities.

Sometimes, in cases like these, they might even have paws.

Neil Grasso is a contributing editor and marketing associate for Newswire.com. With years of experience with both news and content writing, Neil looks to cover and analyze the unique PR strategies used by some of the world's most well-known brands. On the marketing end, Neil specializes in social media management and content creation.

Catch up on the rest of your content marketing news and strategy