SEO.cc - Analysis & Review of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article: Best (and Worst) Ads of ‘06

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Analysis & Review of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article: Best (and Worst) Ads of ‘06

Major marketing campaign projects kickoff as the Super Bowl kicks off every year. Water cooler talk about your Super Bowl marketing campaign can either make or break your business at the level of corporate America. Corporate America is a great place for small to medium size businesses around the country to learn from because they have the budget to do macro research into the population’s behavior and reaction capability. It is evident that the successful (best) advertising campaigns of ’06 integrated a strong web component to bring users into interactivity with their brand which we will explore below.

As a marketing agency focused on Online Marketing, at SEO.cc, Search Engine Operator Inc. we are always interested to see what trends are taking place in the overall marketing industry. Many of the marketing successes this year integrated traditional media with the means of interactive online marketing. We are always fielding questions by are clients in regards to how they can best integrate their traditional media with interactive online marketing.

Here we are going to identify some of the advertising campaigns the WSJ identifies in their article of best and worst advertising campaigns, and the goal of the organization behind the advertising campaign as to how they wanted the consumers to react.

CareerBuilder.com Example (Media Used: Television and Online)
The CareerBuilder.com monkey campaign which can be seen in video at the commercial YouTube links below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBFRBlXyzO4 – CareerBuilder Commercial Spot 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15XlmfTM0XY – CareerBuilder Commercial Spot 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVkRzY9ru7E – CareerBuilder Commercial Spot 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSy1EeRzShU – CareerBuilder Commercial Spot 4
These commercials drew people to the CareerBuilder.com website where they have a web banner at the bottom of the page to compliment the advertising campaign (destination URL of banner http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/default.aspx?sc_cmp2=JS_MONK-E-MAIL). At this link consumers could create funny ad campaign themed e-mails to send out to friends and colleagues. As a result of this advertising campaign e-mails from the above link continue to circulate more then 11 months later, site traffic rose 34% over the course of the year, and consumers going to the link to create an e-mail to send to their friends spent anywhere in the range of six to nine minutes on the site.

The CareerBuilder.com advertising campaign created priceless viral marketing. All advertising circulated was sent by friends whom network with one another. If you watch the commercials above on YouTube you will also see they strike humor into a situation that otherwise many people feel upset about (having to look for a new job). By portraying colleagues as monkeys the ad campaign identifies with the audience saying “don’t worry we understand, it’s them…not you.” This advertising campaign across the board shows the capability of cross-medium marketing.

KFC Example (Online, Newspaper, and Video)
KFC (a division of Yum Brands) took a new approach to advertising the product launch of their new Buffalo KFC Snacker by running a campaign across three various media: the newspaper, the television, and then drawing traffic to their website. Their attempt with the advertising campaign was to attract Tivo users to use the technology to rather than skip their commercial to tape it at the times identified in the newspaper and then watch the commercial frame by frame rather than to fast forward through it to get a code for a coupon to place on the website for a free sandwich coupon. Now the way this was strategically planned consumers had to go on a mission to find the free secret code. Once one consumer found the secret code, KFC had many ways to gain from the code including the priceless Word of Mouth endorsement. Once one person had the code to get a “free” sandwich they were bound to tell their friends and post the information to their friends Online.

If we check the Google rankings for “kfc buffalo snacker code” we come back with over 1,400 results, which means the message definitely was dispersed. The offer ended up on multiple message boards with large audiences looking for free items and codes and also received over 800+ mentions in the media. The ad was also broadcasted for free as a portion of various news segments. The company saw an increase of website traffic of 3 million page views, which is 40% higher then the amount of traffic it normally gets over the same period of time.

Yum Brands is very good at gaining free exposure in the media by giving away free items, for example their Worlds Series target gimmick from Taco Bell (Article about Taco Bell ad campaign with Major League Baseball http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/25/news/fortune500/tacobell_baseball/index.htmhttp://money.cnn.com/2004/10/25/news/fortune500/tacobell_baseball/index.htm) promising the country free beef tacos if the target gets hit during a major baseball game. This advertisement every year receives free press from many media outlets including but not limited to ESPN because of the sports related theme. If we check the Google rankings for “taco bell target baseball” we get over 200,000 results reflecting the vast expanse and reach of this campaign.

Philips Norelco (Example: Online, Radio/Video – Howard Stern plug)
Philips Norelco took a new approach to advertising their new razor created for shaving “everywhere” on a man’s body at the URL http://www.shaveeverywhere.com/. Their goal with this campaign was to attract young men and those concerned with their personal body parts being “hairless.” So to attract this audience guess who they choose as their targeted plug? Howard Stern your old buddy on Sirius. This campaign has been seen as highly effective and to date has drawn over 1.8 million viewers to the site. The goal of this campaign was to not make a public announcement to the world as to what their product could do, but to create buzz amongst their target audience. The site definitely plays in sexual innuendo humor and once again spreads the viral marketing which is very successful in today’s highly connected world. This campaign is a great example of targeting a segment within your targeted marketing audience effectively.

Conclusion
These are just a few of the examples from the Wall Street Journal article about the “Best (and Worst) Ads of ’06,” check out the article in its entirety at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06356/748285-28.stm. The statistics and data used in the above article were also taken from the source article from the Wall Street Journal. We highly recommend this article as a great read. We choose to expand on this article because of the particular campaigns they identify which had a strong web integration aspect involved.

Happy Holidays and Best of Luck in ’07…

Hope you enjoyed this newsletter, and feel free to pass it on to a friend. Also, if you have any questions or comments please write me at Zach@SEO.cc.

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Thank You,

Zach Hoffman
www.SEO.cc - Online Marketing Agency
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Zach@SEO.cc
Dial Up: 954-763-1130
Dental Online Marketing Seminar - March 23-24, 2006 - Austin, TX -
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Topic: Major Marketing Paradigm Shift of Our Time: Internet Marketing

The Internet has become today’s mass form of communication. By definition every major shift in marketing has occurred by changing the way we communicate. Modern day communications and marketing began with delivered mail, followed by the radio, which progressed into television, and has evolved into the medium that marries all media: The Internet. There has never been a more rapidly adaptable form of communication.

We will discuss different avenues to grow and expand your marketing reach by leveraging the power of the Internet. An Internet presence goes beyond your website, and lives on by your use of it as a channel to communicate with your target audience. Your potential reach into the Internet economy is extremely expansive. Through our course you will learn how to capitalize on your traditional forms of media and turn them into an interactive manipulating force on the Internet.

Zach Hoffman - Bio

Zach Hoffman has lived in the dental industry for 20+ years (through the experiences of his father Dr. Howard J. Hoffman, DDS). He has seen the industry transition from a practice focused on insurance based patients to a practice focused on sedation, boutique style cosmetic treatment. Zach still contemplates becoming his father’s dental apprentice by keeping a keen eye on the dental industry, but has chosen to pursue marketing. His background in Economics and Finance, from the University of Central Florida, gives Zach a broad range of knowledge varying from demographics research to identifying business opportunities. With this skill set he has helped his clients maximize their returns on marketing investment dollars.

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