Campaign Design Hall of Fame: Best Examples For Inspiration

Original graphics make up 40% of all successful visual content that accomplishes marketing goals, but 43% of marketers struggle with the consistent production of captivating visuals.

That’s the challenge with marketing campaign design: Not only does it needs to be eye-catching and engaging, but it has to be consistent.

One successful campaign may have a positive impact on your brand, but if you want to enhance brand reputation, generate qualified leads and increase sales volume, you need to create successful campaigns consistently.

Along with strong, compelling copy, design is what makes your campaign attractive and worthy of attention.

If you are not quite sure how to create and manage an impactful digital marketing campaign, read on to learn more about the elements of a campaign’s visual appeal, the stages of a successful product campaign and the best examples of different campaign formats, types and styles.

Let’s dive right in.

Campaign Design: What Is It?

Design is visual communication, so campaign design is the visual vocabulary of your ads.

Campaign design includes:

• The imagery you create (illustrations, photographs, images and videos)
• The style of your advertisements
• The message you are trying to convey

Why is Campaign Design So Important?

Did you know that neurons devoted to visual processing in our brain take up almost 30% of the cortex, while neurons for touch take 8% and for hearing only 3%?

Humans are visual creatures. And vision is more than what meets the eye.

What makes it so complex is the fact that we instantly understand what we see, even if the image is distorted, exaggerated, metaphoric or portrays dual meaning.

We are more likely to remember what we saw than what we read and images can have a stronger emotional impact on us than words.

As American teacher Edgar Dale wrote in his Remembering Cone:

“People will generally remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they hear and see, 70% of what they say and 90% of what they both say and do.”

If we translate Dale’s observation into the world of advertising, it becomes clear that people are more likely to remember your ad if it’s an audio-visual experience, rather than just written words and even more likely to remember it if they talk about it, share it with friends and take action.

Words are very important — especially in your ad copy. What you say and how you say it can make all the difference.

But how you present your copy, including how you combine it with visual elements, is what can truly set you apart.

Campaign design is one of the key elements of digital marketing.

To come up with a strong design, you need to:

• Set a clear goal for every ad
• Define the problem the product or service is solving
• Research the audience
• Brainstorm ideas (the more ideas, the better)
• Narrow ideas down to several specific solutions that will make the campaign distinctive
• Create a detailed brief
• Write highly-engaging copy
• Match copy and design
• Evaluate text and visuals against pre-set goals

How can all of this help your business?

Creating authentic, memorable digital ads can help you boost brand recognition, grow your audience, attract more potential customers and drive revenue.

What Makes a Successful Product Campaign Design?

Making your product stand out from the crowd is not an easy task.

If you want your ad to make a genuine impact in an oversaturated digital arena, you need to find creative ways of representing your products.

The goal is to come up with an innovative design and make it speak loud and clear to your audience.

Here are some of the proven design tactics you can try:

• Use optical illusion
• Show, don’t tell
• Experiment with color
• Surprise with an unexpected element
• Emphasize only one aspect of your product
• Reference pop culture icons
• Use white space
• Highlight the problem
• Play with details
• Experiment with scale
• Alternate images to make your point
• Use bold typography
• Lead with words
• Use a minimalistic approach

These are only some of the creative ways you can make your design pop.

Best Campaign Design Examples

Every marketing campaign needs to tell a story. One tried and true tactic is to make the customer the hero of that story.

Instead of using a campaign to brag about your brand, use the creativity and design to tell a story in which you are the mentor who guides a customer through challenges and helps them solve their problems.

To do this, you need to know your audience inside and out. To learn more about your audience, ask yourself these questions:

• What are my customer’s challenges?
• What questions do they have?
• Where do they search for answers?
• How can I help them become a hero of the story?
• How can I visually represent a solution?
• What type of an ad should I create to captivate my customer’s attention?

Answering these questions can help you decide whether to advertise on social media, create a Google Ads campaign, make a video ad, design an outdoor campaign, use print ads or opt for email marketing.

We’ve curated some of the best marketing campaign examples to help you get inspired and come up with unique, innovative ideas for your next campaign design.

Let’s take a closer look.

Best Marketing Campaigns

The latest trends in marketing design include bold typography, abstract illustrations, animation, AI-based technology and functional, shoppable eCommerce ads.

Visuals are playing a key role in each of these campaigns:

Example #1: Spotify’s “Music For Every Mood” Campaign

This global brand campaign from Spotify leads with words and uses a strong color contrast to emphasize the message.

By highlighting the fact that music can be one of our lifelong companions in various situations, this campaign easily relates to the audience, stirs up emotions and makes a strong statement.

Example #2: Roladin’s “Opposites Attract” Campaign

The outdoor ad campaign “Opposites Attract” from Israeli bakery chain Roladin was designed to promote a premium donut collection for Hanukkah.

The portraits, in combination with bright colors and simple written statements, demand attention.

By emphasizing the individuality, uniqueness and diversity of its donuts, this brand speaks directly to its target audience by making them feel just as special and unique.

If you like these examples, you’re going to love 10+ best marketing campaigns of 2020.

Best Social Media Ad Design

Did you know that 52% of all online brand discovery still happens in public social feeds?

If you want to really impress your viewers, you need to create an exquisite ad to grab attention in the blink of an eye, because it takes less than a second for weak social ads to create a negative emotional response.

Designing a social media ad campaign calls for attractiveness, clarity and a clean format. Choosing the right format and the right social channel is crucial for success.

Let’s look at some of the most inspiring examples of social media ad designs:

Example #1: Dollar Shave Club’s Iconic YouTube Commercial

This video advertisement features the company’s founder who uses humor, personal charm and old-fashioned parody to convey a clear message – shaving shouldn’t take too much time and quality shaving gear shouldn’t cost much.

In 2012, when this commercial was released, Dollar Shave Club was a small start-up with practically no marketing budget, but the company managed to outpace one of its largest competitors – Gillette, a multibillion-dollar company.

Just 48 hours after the commercial was released, Dollar Shave Club’s website crashed due to too much traffic.

Today, this YouTube commercial has almost 27 million views and it has become one of the best examples of how simplicity and authenticity can play a major role in successful digital advertising.

Example #2: Prequel’s Instagram Story Ad

Prequel is a photo and video editor app that works with Instagram, so the decision to advertise within Instagram Stories was an excellent choice since that’s where their target audience is.

Showcasing the app features right inside the advertisement let users know what to expect.

Prequel also added a clear and actionable CTA, compelling users to install the app, which is a great example of how well-thought-out social media campaigns can be successful.

Take a look at our curated list of 20 best social media ad designs for more inspiration.

Email Design Inspiration

When creating an email marketing campaign, written content is usually the most important element.

But that doesn’t mean that the design should be neglected. Visual appeal can be as important as the copy, so let’s take a look at what makes a well-designed email campaign.

Several key points to keep in mind include:

• Make your email easily readable on all devices
• Test to make sure the design appears the same within different email applications
• Be sure to brand your emails and keep the branding consistent
• Make sure every email fulfills its goal, both textually and visually

Let’s see some of the best email design examples in practice:

Example #1: reMarkable 2 Pre-Launch Campaign

This email is part of the pre-launch sequence for the reMarkable 2.0 tablet and it has it all, including:

• Sleek and elegant design
• Clear, concise and compelling copy
• A clear value proposition up front
• Unified and highly distinctive CTAs
• High-quality product images

Example #2: Nike’s Member Access Email

What makes this Nike’s members-only email distinctive is on-brand photography, strong typography and informative copy about the new model of sneakers and their features.

Since this email goes to existing Nike customers and loyalty club members, it makes perfect sense to go into detail within the copy and compare the new model with the previous one.

CTAs actively call readers to shop online and the black and white contrast in the CTA buttons makes them even more attractive.

Are you finding inspiration? Here are 15 additional email campaign design examples to check out.

Best Guerrilla Advertising Examples

The main goal of guerrilla marketing campaigns is to surprise, shock and delight viewers.

Marketers opt for this special advertising format when they want to make a bold statement, they are fighting for a specific cause or they simply want to step outside the box.

This kind of campaign manages to accomplish these goals by appearing in unexpected places, being gigantic compared to traditional marketing formats or by using unconventional materials.

Let's quickly analyze some of the best examples out there:

Example #1: JAKPETZ Campaign For Frontline Flea & Tick Spray

Jakarta’s pet emporium JAKPETZ decided to go big with their outdoor ad campaign for Frontline Flea & Tick Spray. In this case, big size meant a big impact.

Perwanal Saatchi & Saatchi created a guerrilla marketing campaign for this brand by placing a huge image of a dog scratching himself on the floor of a shopping mall.

When viewed from above, people passing by appeared as “fleas jumping on and off the dog,” making this advertisement highly memorable and unique.

Example #2: Red Bull F1 Pitstop In London

Speaking of memorable advertising, Red Bull’s guerrilla campaign was designed to pull out a complete Formula 1 pitstop routine in the middle of London.

This campaign engaged a racing driver Mark Webber, who was cruising in his Formula 1 around the city before stopping for a quick change of tires.

Red Bull also pulled a NASCAR pitstop at crowded Times Square in New York City and made the pitstop guerrilla marketing campaign truly one of a kind.

Best Facebook Video Ads

When creating a mobile-first Facebook video ad, according to Facebook for Business, you need to:

• Showcase your brand early and often
• Design for sound-off, but delight users when the sound is on
• Put your best content to the front to grab attention in a split second
• Tell your story in less than 15 seconds
• Frame everything vertically
• Experiment and surprise your audience

Remember to test your ads frequently, measure results and adjust new campaigns accordingly.

Now, let’s look at some of the best examples:

Example #1: Squarespace To Help Mask-Match.com

This Facebook ad uses short copy and simple graphics to explain how to engage with Mask-Match.com, a service that helps people across the US send spare masks directly to medical workers.

The ad was released during the Coronavirus pandemic and it clearly shows that the simplest solutions are often the best, especially during strange times. It’s an honest, direct call for help and solidarity.

Example #2: Amazon Music

With the hashtag #AVoiceIsAllYouNeed, this short Amason Music mobile ad features a voice message to Alexa to play Alicia Keys’ new song.

It showcases the simplicity of use and the benefits of having the latest music hits at hand, whenever needed.

If you want some more inspirational ads, take a look at the best Facebook video ads in 2020.

Best Magazine Ad Design

Print magazine ads may be a traditional form of advertising, but that doesn’t mean they need to fall behind in creativity and style compared to their digital counterparts.

In fact, sometimes a print ad might be the best solution for you, depending on your business type and industry.

The advantages of magazine advertising include:

• A more targeted reach
• A real experience over a virtual one
• A longer “shelf life”
• Brand credibility, when advertising in a respected magazine
• A broader audience, when people share the magazine with a friend

Let’s check out some of the best magazine ad examples:

Example #1: Seat Ibiza Cupra

When holding a magazine with both hands, this double-page ad gives you quite a literal feeling of sitting behind the wheel of Seat Ibiza Cupra and looking at its dashboard.

This is a clever example of the “show, don’t tell” marketing tactic.

With only a few words, so well incorporated into the image, the reader instantly gets a sense of what it’s like to drive this car just by looking at the ad.

Example #2: Opel Lighting System

Guided by the art direction of Éric Esculier, Publicis Paris created a set of magazine ads for Opel’s new lighting system.

This is a great example of clever use of space and playing with shadow and proportions to emphasize the features of car lights.

Accompanied by the copy that says “Danger shall not pass unnoticed,” this is a perfect example of copy and visuals coming together to create an effective campaign design.

Takeaways On Campaign Design

The goal of every campaign is to make a remarkable first impression, convey a strong statement and leave a lasting impact on the audience.

To have a real influence on today’s world of an ever-decreasing attention span, marketers need to think outside the box, be innovative and come up with clever designs.

Playing with scale, using white space, surprising the audience, exaggerating proportions and highlighting the details are only some of the tactics that you can use in your next marketing campaign.

Don’t be afraid to experiment. Be bold, think big and always aim to make an emotional connection with your audience.

If you’re able to grab attention, your campaign is already half-way to success.