You know you’ve created a winning marketing campaign when you can continue to use a theme over and over again. What this shows us is that it’s important to understand human psychology. We’re humans and we don’t like change. People love to see stories, characters and themes progress and develop – just think back to the Bisto family in the 80s.

On a more cruel note, Delites recently showed how powerful advertising continuity can be. Back in 2012, they ran a very successful campaign that went viral, much to the envy of many a guerrilla marketer. The campaign was based around the theme: how far would you go for fantastic Delites? The premise was very simple – people had to do a variety of menial tasks to earn snacks.

Once again, Delites worked around this theme. They set up four counters in different locations, but this time, instead of challenging people to complete arduous tasks, the idea was to see whether they’d be prepared to wait in queues that were either extremely long or totally unrealistic.

Would you queue up for something if it meant wading through a lake or standing on a very slippery ice rink?

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As with a lot of successful experiential marketing campaigns, the campaign itself had very little to do with the product. There’s little doubt that Delites are straying dangerously close to what’s acceptable from a live branding experience, but their approach is effective. Queuing is something we actively dislike, yet the campaign made a lot of noise (most of it positive). So why would a person put up with a nightmare queue when they could just walk into a shop and buy the snack?

Because we love a story. We love an adventure. We love being part of an experience. Hotcow is a non-traditional creative agency that specialises in experiential marketing that goes viral. Our campaigns generate buzz through crowd participation, PR and content sharing. Contact us on 0207 5030442 or email us on info@hotcow.co.uk.