ABCD Agency is very proud to be celebrating our sixth birthday. So much has happened in those six years—from swabbing taxis to sex positions for the elderly, we’ve had some seriously creative campaigns, as well as office changes and exciting team growth. It has been a great journey that is far from over.
As it's our birthday, we decided to reflect on six of our favourite campaigns of the last six years. With campaigns for clients of all sizes, ABCD has managed to achieve great coverage in the world's most respected media outlets year after year.
6) Kiwi.com: Aviation Price Index
The year was 2015. Kiwi.com was ABCD’s first client, and together we produced a ranking detailing countries around the world that offer the least and most affordable flights. The campaign took into account over 1 million international and domestic journeys over the course of a year, to find out which countries offer the best value flights.
The campaign set the tone for what was to come. The travel focused campaign went viral, with outlets such as Bloomberg, The Telegraph, Business Insider, Thrillist and Huffington Post all covering it. The Aviation Price Index was also the start of a long relationship with Kiwi.com; it also made ABCD popular amongst other online travel companies, supporting the agency's growth in the coming years.
What we liked the most about this campaign: Its simplicity and relevance to so many people.
5) Zalando: Elegant City Index
With annual revenues of around 8 billion euros, Zalando is an online fashion retailer based in Berlin. In 2017, ABCD had the challenge of creating a strategy that would improve Zalando’s brand awareness and online visibility. This campaign focused on generating links and engagement, to position Zalando as a high-quality fashion retailer.
In order to do this, ABCD decided to conduct a study to find out where the world's most elegant cities are. ABCD focused on three categories: the elegance of the infrastructure and architecture; fashion factors associated with elegance; and the affordability of a city.
This campaign went viral around the world, and was covered by more than 300 news platforms. The campaign was featured on major outlets such as the Mail on Sunday, Esquire, Metro, Elle, Vogue, Business Insider, Playboy, Yahoo, and was even a smash hit on multiple Canadian TV channels.
What we liked the most about this campaign: The quality of the research, which helped us to crack Vogue and Elle!
4) Zipjet: Dirty City Index
Dry cleaning is not the sexiest topic, and on-demand laundry service Zipjet were aware of this. They approached ABCD to seek advice on a creative way to get press coverage. ABCD ideated and executed an offline stunt that created lots of buzz, whilst also promoting Zipjet’s product.
Firstly, ABCD teamed up with a laboratory in Mannheim, who sent over testing swabs. ABCD then had individuals in London, Paris, and Berlin swab six different forms of public transport in each city. These swabs were then sent back to the lab, who analysed what bacteria was found. This allowed us to create a landing page that answered the question: how clean is your commute?
The Dirty City Index showed how successful a relatable campaign can be, even if the client is small and the topic isn't sexy. The campaign went viral in Zipjet’s three target countries: the UK, France and Germany. The Dirty City Index was featured in outlets such as Vice, The Sun, BILD and Le Point—and even sparked a public controversy between UK Parliament and ex-Chancellor, George Osbourne!
What we liked the most about this campaign: Its originality. And the controversy it caused!
3) Mimi: Worldwide Hearing Index
Mimi is an innovator for hearing-based sound optimisation and digital hearing tests. ABCD created a campaign for Mimi for World Hearing day. The campaign consisted of an index that would draw attention to the global issue of hearing loss. ABCD and Mimi worked together to interpret digital hearing data from over 500,000 participants worldwide, with data on noise pollution from 50 cities globally. The result was a 64.1% correlation between hearing loss and noise pollution within cities.
The campaign proved popular with prominent media outlets such as Daily Mail, the Berliner Morgenpost, and the Telegraph—and even made it onto a BBC News TV segment.
What we liked the most about this campaign: How much data it incorporated.
2) Airbnb and Tinder: Top LGBT-Friendly Cities to Celebrate Pride
In 2018, Airbnb set ABCD the challenge of gaining tier one media coverage in target cities in the UK, USA, and other key markets. Airbnb wanted to cement their position as an LGBT-friendly brand, whilst also encouraging travel to Pride festivals. ABCD investigated the most LGBTQ-friendly cities for celebrating Pride, while Airbnb provided internal data about cities that were trending during their Pride festivals. Tinder also partnered up with ABCD and Airbnb, providing data on the number of LGBT profiles in the respective cities.
The outreach was carefully timed to coincide with Pride month in 2018, helping gain Airbnb top tier coverage in target media outlets such as the London Evening Standard and the Chicago Tribune.
What we liked the most about this campaign: It was a successful brand-building campaign that also proved popular with news outlets.
1. mySpring: Dating With Hairloss
mySpring is a platform that sells health products for men. In 2021, ABCD was set the task of improving brand awareness, creating awareness, and sparking conversation around the difficult topic of baldness. With the help of a graphic designer, ABCD decided to carry out an A/B test on Tinder with two identical profiles—except for the hair.
One Tinder account was made in Hamburg (with hair), and another one was created in Munich (without hair). Their performance was monitored in tandem. After, the results were analysed and the two profiles were added to a landing page.
This campaign was an instant hit amongst many news outlets, including BILD and GQ, and importantly, got the conversation started about baldness in society.
Our favourite thing about this campaign: the photoshopping, and the surprising results!
That’s all for now...
It’s been six amazing years. At ABCD Agency, we’re only just getting started, and look forward to welcoming new brands in the future. Here’s to the next six years!
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