One of the keys to business success is getting your brand noticed and remembered. That’s the whole point of marketing, after all. However, with so many brands competing with each other to be seen and heard, it takes something really special to get your message out there.

In recent years, the spread of technology has opened up a wide range of choices for companies looking for unique marketing opportunities and, as a result, we’ve seen some truly creative campaigns that have led to major successes for the brands involved.

So how do you roll out clever marketing campaigns that are successful? The first step is to understand your target market – who they are, what they want and what the best way is to communicate with them. Speaking to focus groups throughout the planning stages of a promotional project is a must – and teleconferencing services offer an easy way to carry out these discussions. Of course, you’ll also want a strong creative team that is also capable of implementing the various parts of the campaign to a high quality.

If you’re looking for innovative marketing inspiration, you don’t have to look far – just think of some well-known brands and take some time to analyse how they manage to stand out from the crowd. Here are three of our favourite clever promotions from this year.

Coca-Cola

It seems like Coca-cola has always had a knack for advertising – from popularising the image of a roly-poly Santa in a red suit in the 1930s, through to the Buy the World a Coke song in 1971. In April, the brand launched its Share a Coke campaign in the UK, a promotion that saw the Coke logo replaced with the country’s most popular names – preceded by the words ‘Share a Coke with’. Each bottle and drinks can also featured the Twitter hashtag #shareacoke, encouraging customers to promote the brand online.

Prior to the campaign’s launch, Jon Woods, managing director of Coca-Cola Great Britain and Ireland told Marketing Week that the campaign was meant to boost engagement with the brand and increase sales volumes in the regions. He pointed out that it’s ‘unusual’ and ‘arresting’ to see your own name replacing an iconic brand and he explained that the main point was to excite core consumers.

Metservice

A weather service that provides real-time updates in New Zealand, Metservice opted to erect a billboard in Auckland to promote its brand. With the city’s fickle weather conditions, that are known to change on an almost constant basis, the brand decided that the best way to illustrate its up-to-the-minute information was to create an advertisement that looked like a computer browser, but which showed ‘images’ of the live sky behind it. In actuality, the billboard was a frame and the ‘image’ was the real-life sky behind it.

The billboard generated a lot of buzz and managing director from marketing agency Y&R said he was thrilled with the results, pointing out that the project generated exposure “well and above the norm” for Metservice.

Forbes

As one of the leading sources of business news and financial information, Forbes magazine is a favourite choice for busy business people who are constantly on the go.

The May 2013 issue of the magazine made the most of this demographic by inserting a miniature Wi-Fi hotspot into selected copies – giving smartphone and tablet users an instant connection to the internet. The campaign was launched in partnership with tech firm Americhip and also promoted Microsoft’s cloud-based computing technology. What’s more, it gave readers a reason to keep carrying around their copy of the magazine, long after they would have otherwise finished with it.