Effective marketing techniques are often the key to the success of a product. No matter how good your product is, if it is not promoted properly, maybe no one will realize its existence.
In a competitive market, good marketing techniques allow your product to stand out from the competition. In history, we can see some influential advertising campaigns that are not only effective, but make people remember it forever.
Here is a list of five most influential advertisement in the world produced by reputable companies.
1.I Want You
The image above accompanied by the sentence “I Want You” is still popular to this day and is often used as a meme. Compared to other popular marketing campaigns on this list, this “I Want You” campaign is not intended to market a product, but rather recruited soldiers during World War 1 and 2.
United States launched a massive campaign to recruit young people to join the country’s military forces. The campaign uses a picture of a man with a high hat, thick eyebrows and pointing fingers at readers with the phrase “I Want You”.
A few people said the man is “Uncle Sam”, a name that also refers to the United States. While the effects of this recruitment campaign have seen United States kill many people, there is no denying that this campaign is very effective.
2. Share A Coke 
“Share A Coke” campaign was first launched in Australia in 2011 before expanding to several countries including Malaysia. It basically involves a change in the traditional design of a Coca-Cola beverage by including a post that reads “Share a Coke with..” accompanied by an individual.
This campaign was so well received that it was eventually imitated in other countries around the world with a few unique changes of their own such as interactive billboards in Israel or a choice to print their own name such as in China and Malaysia.
Does anyone still keep a can of Coca Cola drinks printed in your own name?
3. Just Do It
The tagline “Just Do It” seems to be a sentence in the form of motivational words. However, many people know that it is a slogan that is synonym with the brand such as Nike. “Just Do It” campaign was introduced by Nike to further expand the scope of their brand which was initially more closely linked to marathon sports.
The “Just Do It” campaigns was Nike’s effort in the late 80’s to compete with the Reebok brand, which offered sports equipment for a variety of sports. The campaign is also an effort to encourage locals to adopt a healthy lifestyle and inspire the public to do their best beyond their meaning.
This campaigned, which was boost in collaboration with famous sports athlete, Michael Jordan, is considered one of the most famous sports brand campaigns in the world and the phrase “Just Do It” continues to be popular among sports fans to this day.
4. We Can Do It
The poster above is often seen as a meme nowadays, especially for those who are fighting for the feminist movement. However, a lot of people not know the woman in the picture described as strong and muscular is a poster produced by Westinghouse Electric.
Westinghouse Electric is a company that produces safety helmets for military use on the battlefield.This poster was created to raise the morale of woman workers and depicts their efforts will also help US fighters and soldiers to win the Second World War.
However, it was not until the 1970’s and 1980’s that this image suddenly became popular among feminist movements as a symbol of women’s empowerment. Since then, this image has been used by everyone such as Clorox Brand to Beyonce to convey the idea that women are strong and independent people who are able to be successful with their own efforts.
5.Marlboro Man
Started with commercials as early as 1955, Marlboro Man quickly became known as a cultural icon more than his main purpose as an ambassador or spokesman for the Marlboro cigarette brand. This character depicts a masculine and popular man around the world.
Before the campaign featuring the character “Marlboro Man” was introduced, cigarettes sold in cigarette boxes are usually more synonymous with women. In fact, before Marlboro Man was introduced, the company also used the slogan “Mild as May” whose marketing focus was more on women.
The character of Marlboro Man was crated to show the public the real men also smoke Marlboro cigarettes. Marlboro Man is a free-living cowboy.That was a lifestyle men wanted at the time and this camoaign resulted in the sale of Marlboro cigarettes being soaring.
By 1972, Marlboro was the world’s best-selling tobacco brand and Marlboro Man was world-renowed. Atlhough some countries gave already banned tobacco cigarettes advertisements in mainstream broadcasts, the character of Marlboro Man still remained until now.
Sources: Time.com, Coca Cola Australia, Washingtonpost.com, Americanhistory.com, The atlantic.com,
