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Product Innovation

“The Invitation” by Coca-Cola will be remembered for years to come, when it introduced a "locked" Coke, a limitededition bottle of the beverage for Diwali, as a technological product innovation The unique Bluetooth-enabled cap on the firstof-its-kind locked bottle could only be opened in the presence of the sender's phone.

"Digital enablement and product innovation are key pillars of growth, and the new 'locked' bottle perfectly aligns with this strategy ”

Takeaway: "Nothing can be everything"

Brands compete for Super Bowl airtime, therefore the ads are exorbitant In 2022, the most expensive 30-second commercial spaces in NFL history are expected to sell for almost $6.5 million. Reddit invested in a fivesecond Super Bowl commercial spot and became profitable.

A basic car advertisement >> transitioning to a glitchy screen >> leading to Reddit’s orange-and-white alien-head logo over the screen >> followed by a lengthy text >> switching to horses racing through a field. Wait, what? Yes, exactly.

The ad was so ambiguous that many people assumed it was a mistake that drew so much attention during a major event like the Super Bowl. Since it finished in a flash, people swarmed to social media to figure out what had happened. When they arrived, they were greeted by a Reddit Tweet that had 464,000 views on the social media site

Another brand to have mastered what we call "Branding Innovation" with its "Do Nothing” campaign is Cadbury 5 Star. Lowering its advertising budget to zero and asserting that it will do nothing while others spend a fortune, Cadbury 5 Star simplified its logo into a visual of five stars Now that the five blank stars on the app screen match the new 5-Star logo, every time an app requests a rating, it will implicitly promote the product.

Takeaway: Less is more.

Netflix is another brand that screams originality in its marketing techniques The brand introduced advertising to its platform for the first time this year. Its marketing was particularly impressive in its advertising for Stranger Things season 4. To capitalize on the show’s anticipation, Netflix ran an experiential campaign.

They displayed billboards for fictional products in the Stranger Things universe and a phone number to call, connecting the caller to an odd voicemail that later enabled fans to discover their superpowers and a trip to Hawkins Plaza, where viewers got to participate in a plot written by the show's writers Lyft and Netflix also collaborated on a limited-edition scary car ride

Process Innovation

Given the show's great success, it was only natural for other brands to try to get a piece of the action Domino's, on the other hand, had much more than simply a piece

The unique campaign for Domino's x Stranger Things focused on a "mindordering" app that blends facial recognition, eye tracking, and gesture control to allow users to emulate levitating objects and eventually order pizza like telekinetic protagonist Eleven It was simply cobranding at its finest – harmonious and imaginative in order to create something entirely new.

Scavenger hunts became a popular strategy used by marketers to capitalize on consumers' desire to spend time outside as the world reopened in 2022. Doritos sent customers looking for famous triangleshaped structures like a pyramid-shaped which was enhanced using the Triangle Tracker, a Snapchat augmented reality (AR) lens Doritos' mix of a strong multichannel strategy and the attraction of adventure worked wonders

Budweiser sent soccer fans on a QR code scavenger hunt to celebrate the FIFA World Cup later in the fall.

Place Innovation

It would be unfair not to explore how brands used the metaverse to innovate and enhance the consumer experience.

From playing interactive games with Wendy's and Chipotle to getting married in virtual reality at Taco Bell, several major corporations began experimenting with the metaverse in 2022. In Decentraland, Samsung even opened its first metaverse store.

Brands see metaverse as a ray of hope ushering in a new marketing era, as illustrated by the first-ever Metaverse Fashion Week, which saw big brands jump on the wagon.

However, innovation does not always imply drastic changes, large investments in disruptive technologies, or a total redesign of the process. These brands have unfurled to teach that innovation can be an enabler of business competitiveness and performance