Content innovation helps brands stand out. Take the UK online bank Monzo, which used a campaign built on print to demystify personal finance. Meanwhile, in Brazil, Budweiser used social media users’ dwindling attention spans as inspiration for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it video campaign, while UN Live launched a global campaign that plugged into the existing music streaming ecosystem – and gave nature equal billing to David Bowie.
Each of these three examples took a risk with their content marketing while staying true to their brand identity.
Monzo moves from screen to page
British online bank Monzo has expanded rapidly since its 2015 founding, but with more and more financial institutions also offering sleek apps and practical budgeting tools, it wanted to differentiate itself
Its research showed that 51% of British people feel they are not reaching their financial potential due to a lack of money knowledge. To turn personal finance from a bugbear into something consumers would queue up for, the brand decided to write a book about money. One that people might actually want to read.
The Monzo Book of Money was designed to feel human and engaging – echoing Monzo’s unstuffy, relatable branding. It focused not on the mechanics of money, but on the life it can enable.
The approachable guide, published with Penguin, was promoted pop-up featured 3500 personalized versions of the book. Each copy had a different cover, includingThe Book of Sleeping Well on the 29th of the Month, The Book of Not Being Tempted by Sales and The Book of Finally Extending the Kitchen
The pop-up’s impact was amplified through retailers and social content, including a video series, Lessons from the Book of Money, fronted by creator Shu Lin. The series turns the book’s chapters’ into short-form money lessons.
- nearly 1,500 visits to the pop-up (50% over forecast)
- over 7 million views for Lin’s video series
- the book became a bestseller within a week, selling its annual sales target in its first month
- perceptions of Monzo as ‘knowledgeable’ in London rose from 3% to 31% – their highest level to date
In today’s digital noise, physical content stands out as tangible and trustworthy. With a personalized book and a Soho pop-up, Monzo transformed a dry topic into an experience consumers were willing to seek out. Crucially, while they took a big step – from an app-based business to the printed page – they remained in step with their brand values of being straightforward and relatable throughout.
Budweiser shows timing is everything
Budweiser’s ties with music goes back decades. In the seventies, rock stars were snapped with the iconic bottles and cans in hand, and since then widespread festival and venue sponsorship has cemented the link. The beer giant wanted to remind Brazilian music fans of the connection today, but feared that a social campaign of 15 or 30 second ads would be hamstrung by short attention spans on social.
Instead of fearing the fleeting engagement that leads users to skip ads – or feel frustrated when they’re forced to watch till the end – Budweiser chose to embrace it. Inspired by research that showed that fans could guess classic tunes within a second, the company created a series of one-second guess-the-song challenge ads with agency Africa Creative.
Songs from AC/DC, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, the Beatles and the Foo Fighters all featured on a campaign across social channels including TikTok. The challenge hit a sweet spot: the rush and validation that fans got from being able to guess a tune, and the nagging frustration if they could not quite place it.
The ad’s focus on tiny snippets had a cost benefit too, with Budweiser avoiding royalties on using the songs thanks to their short duration. The controversy that resulted after the campaign celebrated this loophole after its 2025 Cannes Lions win shows innovation can come with reputational risk.
- 68 million impressions and 125,000 user guesses in the first two weeks after launch
- 119% more views than the benchmark
- near-total completion rates
- music fans commented on the ads, but also shared them on their own social media to prove they could guess the songs
Instead of fighting user behaviour, consider leaning into it. Budweiser turned the fear the customers would skip or resent longer ads into the hook of its campaign. This micro-content innovation left viewers wanting more and played on the brand’s musical heritage.
The UN channels the greatest artist of all time
Environmental activism may be critical for our planet, but it can feel like a turn-off for some consumers, particularly where it focuses on the bleak impacts of climate change. Sounds Right, a collaboration between the Museum for the United Nations and streaming services including Spotify aimed to attract attention while funding climate preservation initiatives, creating new music and focusing attention on the biggest rock star of all – the Earth itself.
Working with agency AKQA as well as acoustic ecologists, environmental NGOs and indigenous representatives, the UN Live team launched an immersive, interactive website with the playful claim that ‘the greatest artist of all time has never been credited for her work. Until now.’
The campaign registered Nature as a verified artist across global streaming platforms. A series of tracks from artists including Brian Eno, David Bowie, Ellie Goulding, London Grammar and Aurora were remixed with natural sounds including waves, hyenas, wild pigs and the Borneo rainforest, and released as collaborations with Nature. Bespoke typefaces and colours derived from nature helped establish a visual identity to accompany the sounds.
- over 350 million streams across major platforms between 2024 and 2026
- 5k followers
- Nature became a top 1% artist
- major funding milestones including a $225,000 grant to conservation projects in Colombia’s Tropical Andes
- extensive press coverage
- more artists invited to collaborate with Nature in future
Content innovations can involve creating new work that stands alone, but they can also hinge on clever uses of an existing ecosystem. UN Live used streaming to make Nature’s songs into an effortless soundtrack.
There’s no one way to produce innovative content that works. A beer company leveraged music fans’ pride and intuition in a video-ad challenge, an online bank stepped into the analogue world and made a bestseller, and a climate campaign collaborated with pop stars and streaming giants. All three of these examples share one lesson, creativity is vital for content marketing that captures audiences attention.
