Snails, Nails and Potato Chips – MailChimp’s Insane Fake Ad Campaign

MailChimp recently partnered with ad agency Droga5 to create what is now referred to as the “Did You Mean MailChimp?” campaign. This whacky marketing stunt used some bizarre tactics, but it ultimately helped the email marketing platform reach 334 million people.

While that reach is certainly impressive, there was a moment when this campaign was almost stopped dead in its tracks. The Droga5 account director sat down with the email company’s CMO, Tom Klein, and the senior director of brand marketing, Mark DiCristina, and admitted that this new campaign felt borderline reckless. Fortunately for MailChimp, that was the moment DiCristina knew they were onto something.

And it was definitely…something.

The company decided to create nine fake products that sounded similar in name to MailChimp. They would then promote these products to specified subcultures that exist within MailChimp’s typical target markets.

SnailPrimp, FailChips, and NailChamp are a few of the more memorable fake product names. SnailPrimp tapped into the latest (and unfortunately very real) snail secretion beauty trend to launch a one-day pop-up spa in Los Angeles featuring the treatment. For the FailChips stunt, 10 cities were sent crushed bags of real potato chips, which resulted in lots of drama on social. And NailChamp was a six-week online battle between nail professionals, which was even covered in Teen Vogue.

These phony products blurred the lines between what’s real and what’s fake, causing quite the commotion. But that was exactly what MailChimp intended to do as the campaign garnered lots of attention. Overall, they made sure no one will forget the name of the company anytime soon.

So, does your company have what it takes to pull off a marketing campaign like this? If not, then you might not have the right marketing talent in place. Drop us a line today and we’ll find the right person who can pull off a possibly reckless, yet wildly successful, campaign.