In the digital age, customers no longer trust one-sided advertising. They trust the story, the emotions, and the value that a brand delivers. Therefore, content marketing has become a strategic weapon that helps businesses build trust, attract customers, and generate sustainable revenue.

No longer just isolated posts, content marketing today is a strategic system where content is designed to educate, inspire, and connect emotionally. Major brands like Dove, Oreo, Duolingo, and Nike have proven that, if done correctly, content marketing can change how consumers perceive brands, and even entire industries.

1. Dove - “Real Beauty” and the Power of Socially Relevant Content

When it comes to the most successful marketing campaigns, Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign always comes out on top. Launched in 2004, this campaign didn't promote soap, but celebrated the true beauty of women – a theme that hadn't been explored in depth in advertising at the time.

Dove has broken traditional beauty standards by celebrating imperfections and body diversity. Their videos, images, and articles encourage women to be confident and love themselves beyond their appearance.

Results: The campaign spread globally with millions of personal stories shared and hundreds of organizations supporting it. Dove didn't just sell products; it sold social value, built deep trust, and cultivated a humane image.

Lesson learned: Effective content marketing appeals to emotions and beliefs, not just reason.

One of the promotional banners in the "The Real Beauty of Dove" advertising campaign.

2. Oreo - The "Daily Twist" and a lesson in speed, creativity, and timing.

In 2012, Oreo celebrated its 100th anniversary with "Daily Twist." Over 100 days, they created 100 digital commercials, adapting the Oreo cookie to reflect everyday events—from the London Olympics to LGBT Pride Day.

Key features: High response speed. The team updates news every morning and designs content within hours. Content is entertaining and relevant to current public discussions.

Results: Millions of shares, hundreds of analytical articles, increased engagement with young customers on social media.

Lesson learned: Content marketing isn't just about quality; it needs to be timely to make the brand feel vibrant and relatable.

Every day, Oreo creatively combines its cookies with images that symbolize holidays and important occasions.

3. Duolingo - When "funny and outrageous" content conquers Gen Z.

If Dove represents emotions and Oreo represents creativity, then Duolingo illustrates how to "catch trends" on new platforms like TikTok.

Free language learning apps used to struggle to retain young users. But with the hilarious owl mascot Duo – featured in videos like "Duo is spying because you didn't study" or trending dance moves – things changed. The content is both funny and subtly reminds users to return to the app.

Result: TikTok accounts garnered tens of millions of views and saw a significant increase in new users among Gen Z.

Lesson learned: Content marketing is effective when brands speak the same cultural language as their customers, turning the channel into a playground.

Duolingo's content on TikTok consistently receives high engagement.

4. Nike - “You Can’t Stop Us” and the power of emotion in crisis

In 2020, amidst the pandemic, Nike released “You Can’t Stop Us”—a video celebrating resilience and inclusiveness in sports.

The video is a compilation of hundreds of parallel scenes: Athletes of different races, genders, and backgrounds, but all sharing the same spirit of "Sport never stops."

Result: Over 50 million views in 5 days, hundreds of thousands of shares, becoming a symbol of overcoming adversity.

Lesson learned: Content that touches on core values—perseverance, connection—is essential for inspiring life, not just selling products.

The video features hundreds of parallel scenes from the "You can't stop us" campaign.

What can Vietnamese SMEs learn from these four case studies?

Despite their different fields, scales, and styles, all four campaigns share one common point: Content is the soul of the brand. Dove inspires trust, Oreo embraces speed, Duolingo connects cultures, and Nike inspires.

This is also a lesson for SMEs:

• Invest in value instead of expensive advertising: Create educational content and connect emotionally to build lasting communities.
• Flexible application for SMEs: No large budget required, just the right strategy to make an impact.
• Leveraging technology: Combining AI for fast, cost-effective content production – the key for small businesses in Vietnam.

GTG CRM: An AI solution that helps SMEs leverage content marketing effectively and affordably.

For SMEs, creating consistent, high-quality content is a major challenge – requiring a professional team and significant costs. GTG CRM addresses this with intelligent AI, simplifying the content marketing process.

Create social media posts: AI generates engaging, industry-relevant, multilingual content (including Vietnamese), and creates exclusive illustrations in just minutes.

Creating engaging social media posts is easy with AI.

SEO-optimized sales content: Writing keyword-optimized landing pages and personalized email marketing to increase conversions.

AI creates SEO-optimized landing page content, making it easy to rank highly in search results.

Create professional email content: Prepare a polished email with just one simple command.

Without needing a large content team, SMEs can produce 100 articles per month with a budget of only 208,000 VND/month, ensuring perfect brand consistency.

In particular, GTG CRM's AI assistant can help you create a content plan for each month, each year, and even suggest content directions for business owners.

GTG CRM "democratizes" Content Marketing, turning ideas into actual campaigns – similar to how Dove or Nike do it, but more easily for Vietnamese businesses.

See also: Smart Marketing Solutions for SMEs: Reduce Costs, Maximize Efficiency with GTG CRM

Conclude

From Dove to Nike, the world proves that content marketing isn't just about selling products – it builds trust, emotions, and communities. With AI from GTG CRM, Vietnamese SMEs can now replicate that power without the high cost.

Start your content marketing journey today – turn your brand story into sustainable revenue!