Low-budget marketing ideas from famous brands
Low-budget marketing ideas from famous brands that cost little and worked: Hotmail, Nirma, Blendtec, Zerodha, Patagonia, Lijjat, Oreo and KFC. What each did, the numbers, and how a small brand can copy it.
By the Razzle team · Updated
The short answer
The cheapest campaigns that worked share three things: one idea that's easy to repeat, a product that's part of the joke or the message, and timing. Hotmail's one-line signature, Blendtec's blender videos and Oreo's blackout tweet each cost almost nothing.
Big brands are remembered for expensive ads, but some of their best-known marketing cost very little. Here are eight, with the numbers and how a small brand can use the same idea.
1. Hotmail: one line in every email
Hotmail added one line to the bottom of every email its users sent: an invitation to get a free email account at Hotmail. Every message became an ad, sent by a friend. Hotmail had 8.5 million users by December 1997, when Microsoft bought it for a reported $400 million (Wikipedia).
Copy it: put a line about you wherever your product already travels: on invoices, delivery boxes, receipts, the "Made with" mark on things your customers share.
2. Nirma: a price nobody could ignore
Nirma launched in 1969 at about ₹3.50 a kilo when Surf cost around ₹13. Its founder sold the first packets from his bicycle, and the "Washing Powder Nirma" jingle made it a household name (Wikipedia).
Copy it: if your price is your advantage, say it loudly and simply, in one number, everywhere.
3. Blendtec: blending iPhones
Blendtec started "Will It Blend?" with a budget of about $50 for props: marbles, a rotisserie chicken, golf balls and later an iPhone. The first videos drew about 6 million views in under a week, and the company has said its retail sales rose 700% in the years after (BYU Magazine).
Copy it: put your product through a test that's fun to watch and proves your claim. A strong bag carrying 30 kg, a waterproof watch in a bucket.
4. Zerodha: teaching instead of advertising
Zerodha has said it doesn't spend on advertising. It built Varsity, a free library of lessons on investing, kept its pricing simple, and became India's largest retail stockbroker by active clients in 2019 (Wikipedia).
Copy it: teach the thing your customers need to understand before they buy from you. Each lesson is a carousel or a Reel people save and send.
5. Patagonia: "Don't buy this jacket"
On Black Friday 2011, Patagonia ran a full-page ad in The New York Times telling people not to buy its jacket unless they needed it, to make a point about consumption. It became one of the most talked-about ads of the year, because it said the opposite of every other ad that day.
Copy it: on a day when everyone says the same thing, say the honest opposite, if it's what your brand believes.
6. Lijjat Papad: ₹80 and word of mouth
Lijjat began in 1959 with seven women on a Mumbai rooftop and ₹80 borrowed. Its early growth came by word of mouth, through its members and the shops they sold to, long before it advertised. It passed ₹1,600 crore in turnover by 2019 (Wikipedia).
Copy it: make the people behind the product the story. Customers repeat stories about people, not about features.
7. Oreo: "You can still dunk in the dark"
When the lights went out during the 2013 Super Bowl, Oreo's social team posted one picture and one line within minutes: "You can still dunk in the dark." It was retweeted about 10,000 times in an hour and is still taught as the classic example of real-time marketing (as reported by CNBC at the time).
Copy it: be ready to post fast when something happens that your customers are all talking about: a match, the weather, a festival. Keep a template ready so it takes minutes, not a day of approvals.
8. KFC: sorry, in three letters
In 2018 KFC UK ran out of chicken and had to close hundreds of restaurants. Instead of a formal apology, it ran a full-page ad of an empty bucket with the letters rearranged to "FCK". The apology turned a crisis into some of the best press KFC had that year.
Copy it: when you get something wrong, say sorry plainly and in your own voice. Customers forgive honesty faster than corporate statements.
What they have in common
- One idea, easy to repeat. A line, a test, a price, a lesson.
- The product is in the story, not next to it.
- People pass it on. Instagram ranks posts partly on how often people send them to friends, which is exactly what these campaigns were built for.
Tell these stories on Instagram
"How X did Y" is one of the formats people save most: a hook, the numbers, the lesson. Razzle's case study template and brand story carousels are built for it, in your brand's look.
Questions
- What's the cheapest way to market a small business?
- Make your product or your customers do the talking: something they pass on (a signature line, a referral, a shareable video) costs nothing per new customer.
- Do these ideas still work on Instagram?
- The ideas do. Instagram ranks posts partly on how often people send them to friends, which is exactly what these campaigns were built for.