5 Valentine’s Day Marketing Campaigns We Fell in Love With
Christmas and the New Year are over, which means that marketers around the world are getting ready for the next big holiday: Valentine's Day. Most people adore this day and take it as another chance to express their love towards their significant other, be it in a grand way, or through a nice cozy dinner with a symbolic gift. In either case, this is the holiday marketing specialists prepare well in advance with campaigns and offers for the customers. And some of them are getting very creative!
As the holiday that paints online and offline worlds red is approaching, we’ve decided to revisit some of the best Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns and share them with you for some inspiration. Let’s take a look!
Tinder X Spotify – Valentine’s Playlist
Music makes our lives infinitely better, and there is simply no arguing with that. And it also has the power to set the mood for any day or event. This quality comes in especially handy during special nights like Valentine's day, when you want to create a special atmosphere that would connect you with your significant other and help you share your feelings.
Spotify, the largest music streaming service in the world knows this quite well. To make Valentine's Day for couples around the world better, the streaming service partnered up with Tinder, the largest dating app. The result of this match made in heaven were custom dating playlists: single people were asked to answer several questions, and a custom playlist of love songs was generated based on their answers.
The cooperation was based on the research by Tinder that showed that 84% of people on the app hoped to find someone who had the same taste in music! Users could then share this playlist or specific songs on their Tinder account, improving their chance of finding their perfect match for Valentine's Day.
Cadbury 5 Star – Valentine’s Day Alibi
This one is for the singleton’s out there. We all know how dreading Valentine’s Day can be when you are single, mostly because of the “So what are you doing on Valentine’s Day?” questions. Cadbury 5 Star India knows this too, and they’ve decided to give all the single’s out there the perfect gift for Valentine's Day: a perfect alibi for all the upcoming questions. The company has rented an island and named it “My Cousin’s Wedding.” Now, when someone asks what your plans are for Valentine's Day, you can say that you are going to Cousin’s Wedding, and you won’t be lying! To enter the competition and for a chance to win, people only need to scan the QR codes available on any Cadbury 5 Star wrapper. Isn’t this genius? https://youtu.be/_Cnb5XLL5Q4
Zalando Pre-Owned – Exchange the Clothes After Your Ex
Next on our list of our Valentines’ Day (or should we call it anti-Valentine’s Day?) campaign is Zalando Pre-Owned with their “Exchange the Clothes After Your Ex” campaign. The ad campaign is a short video featuring three different love stories that end up with clothes being thrown away. The ad then suggest that instead of throwing away the clothing items of your ex, you can instead sell them on Zalando Pre-Owned.
What is great about the campaigns is that it, apart from proving that Valentine’s Day campaigns shouldn’t always be about gifts, raises the question of sustainability in fashion.
Pandora – Getting Real With Real People
The jewelry brand decided to get real for their Valentine’s Day campaign in 2021. Instead of going with fancy productions and scripted commercials, they’ve decided to feature real-life couples and ask them what Valentine’s Day means to them. From “It’s kind of like Christmas, but for love” to “it’s the little acts of love,” they got beautiful responses, and made a touching video that puts a smile on our face every time we watch it.
1-800-Flowers – Galentine's Day
Valentine’s Day is all about love, but that love doesn’t have to be only romantic. In 2022, 1-800-Flowers took the opportunity to celebrate friendships and other platonic relationships that make our lives worth living as much as romantic relationships do. The video features two friends telling the story of how they met, how their friendship blossomed into what it is today, and the role it has in their lives. The ad is very emotional and can get you remembering all the happy moments you’ve had with your best friends, and may even inspire you to send them a beautiful bouquet!
Honorable Mention: Match.com - Match Made in Heaven
This one is not a Valentine’s Day campaign, but we wanted to share it because it would have been! Directed by Ryan Reynolds, the ad campaign for the dating app Match.com was a farewell to 2020. As one of the worst years in recent history was coming to an end, the app created a love story between a young woman named 2020 and Satan, who met on the app. As the video progresses, it is a summary of everything that has happened throughout the year, from empty stadium picnics to toilet paper shortage. As a cherry on top, all of this is happening under the melodic tunes of Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.”
The video was then followed by another video of the couple sharing the story of how they met on the app, with Satan saying that he "...started by using the Match custom search filter. I filtered out joy, happiness, toilet paper, and reason."
There are many reasons we love this campaign. 2020 hasn’t been the easiest year, but Match.com has found a clever, funny, and tasteful way to create something the audience around the world could relate to and maybe even brighten up their worlds a little. And of course, showcase the effectiveness of their app as Valentine's day was slowly approaching.
Wrapping Up
Valentine’s Day is one of the favorite holidays of marketers around the world soon: it’s infinitely positive, has people going a bit crazy (in a good way!), and gives infinite possibilities to come up with creative campaigns for products and services for almost all industries. All you need for this is imagination and creativity coupled with the understanding of your audience. We hope these campaigns can be a valuable source of inspiration for your next Valentine’s Day campaign. Good luck!
