How These Brands Thought Outside the Box to Win Consumers’ Hearts
Discover how brands like Barilla, Saucony, and Chewy wow customers with creative marketing that builds relationships beyond sales.
Three marketing triumphs that excited customers
Ways to win your customers' hearts
When people think of marketing, often the first thing that comes to mind is selling. And while selling is important, marketing is about building a relationship with your audience. We frequently discuss the value of connecting with your target audience—but how do you continue to reinforce that relationship without just continuing to sell?
The relationship needs to go beyond just connection; you need to win the hearts of your customers. So, it’s time to go to the drawing board and encourage your team to go by our philosophy: there are no bad ideas!
Three marketing triumphs that excited customers
Brands are constantly searching for ways to stand out and forge deeper connections with their audiences. While your standard discounts and promotions can drive short-term sales, it’s the unexpected moments of delight that transform casual customers into devoted advocates.
These innovative approaches didn’t just boost brand awareness. They strengthened customers’ emotional connections with the brand by demonstrating a genuine understanding of their lives, values, and needs. Let’s explore how Barilla, Saucony, and Chewy.com created marketing experiences that surprised, delighted, and reinforced customer loyalty with strategies that went beyond what was expected.
Barilla’s pasta playlists
If you’ve walked down the pasta aisle in your typical grocery store, you’ve definitely seen the blue Barilla boxes lining the shelves. The pastas come in all shapes and sizes, from fettuccine to farfalle, but they don’t all have the same cooking times. And, let’s be honest, no one likes overcooked pasta.
Barilla took the initiative to make sure people have perfectly cooked pasta every time: they partnered with Spotify to create playlists for each pasta shape. When you start cooking your pasta, choose the right playlist, click “play,” and when the playlist is over, your noodles will be cooked to perfection. Cooks can jam out to “Top Hits Spaghetti” or “Moody Day Linguine” to really channel the energy of their preferred noodles.
We know that this initiative wasn’t an expectation from consumers, but it’s an exciting and quirky offering that gets people excited to cook with Barilla pasta. This tactic wasn’t created to directly encourage consumers to buy products; instead it served as a fun, inventive touchpoint for them to interact with the brand in a new way.
Saucony’s fight against doom scrolling
Athletic-wear brand Saucony whose mission is to “inspire and serve all humans to live their best lives by providing access to running, celebrating self-expression and creating a better world.” In 2024, sticking to this goal, Saucony invented the “Marathumb Challenge.” The brand found that the average person scrolls the length of three marathons per year, a whopping 78 miles. So, they invented the Marathumb Challenge to encourage people to step as much as they scroll—if a participant moved further than they scrolled, they would receive coupons and free Saucony merchandise in return.
This fight against doom scrolling reflects Saucony’s brand values, a powerful tactic for connecting with consumers. This initiative boosted Saucony’s reputation when it comes to healthily moving the body and rewarded customers for the effort to do so.
Chewy.com speaks to pet parents
Chewy.com is an online pet product retailer, offering subscription services for pet food, vitamins, toys, clothing, and more. Chewy.com consistently finds new ways to surprise and delight their customers, including commissioning an artist to create customized pet portraits to include in loyal customers’ orders. Chewy.com understands the love that pet parents have for their furry friends—this was a fantastic way to share their appreciation and reward loyalty from customers.
Why delight works
Customers want to know that they’re more than just, well, a customer. By going the extra mile to reward customers or inspire them, your brand is showing that they’re not a mere number in a financial report, and the company is thankful for their support. Customers are more likely to support a business that appreciates them—and if they find that a business doesn’t, they'll find another one out there who will.
Ways to win your customers’ hearts
It’s time to get creative with your team to brainstorm ways to form and reinforce connections with your audience. In addition to the examples from Barilla, Saucony, and Chewy.com, here are a few ways to show your appreciation in fun, exciting ways:
- Send personal, handwritten birthday cards or thank you notes with a gift card or discount code.
- Implement a “Random Acts of Kindness” policy where employees can give free gifts to customers.
- Establish a “Second Chance Day” where customers can exchange products they didn’t love outside the normal return policy.
- Add “Easter eggs” into product packaging, like a funny message under a bottle cap or a surprise upgrade, to make the experience of engaging with your product unexpectedly fun.
- Send “just because” gifts to loyal customers, either as a part of their order or as its own package.
- Create a secret menu that only insider customers have access to.
Ultimately, building customer loyalty isn't about flashy marketing campaigns or one-time promotions—it's about creating genuine moments of connection that transform customers into advocates for your brand. Remember that in today's crowded marketplace, customers have endless choices. What will make them choose your brand again and again isn't purely because of your product or price point—it's how you make them feel. These touchpoints communicate that you value people over profits, authentic exchange over one-way sale.
When you invest in meaningful customer connections, you’re building a community around your brand. These creative moments of appreciation inspire valued memories that competitors can’t easily replicate. Plus, who doesn’t love being an innovative marketer?