Archive for the ‘Advertising News’ Category

New Ad Campaign Gives Baby Carrots Big Makeover

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Move over Cheetos, here come the carrots. There’s another snack that’s orange and crunchy and it’s coming to a TV commercial near you. As part of a new $25 million marketing plan unveiled this week, baby carrot producers are now touting the fresh, repackaged veggie as the latest in cool and trendy.

More than 50 baby carrot growers are joining the marketing campaign, which features different types of advertising. Both billboard and television ads will be used locally, with more exciting product packaging and a new slogan also part of the marketing plan.

Ads featuring the cool, healthy snack will be placed on a number of outdoor advertising billboards with high volume traffic just in time for the new school year. As Americans are constantly being reminded to eat healthier foods, baby carrot producers are ramping up the message not as a slam on junk food, but as an exciting alternative. The TV ad campaign will be directed at school-age kids looking for a cool, trendy and popular lunch treat. Giving baby carrots a new image might just be the answer for kids and parents alike.

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Insurance Company Finds Radio & TV Advertising Success

Friday, August 13th, 2010

Patience is a virtue, but it also brings dividends in advertising. Just ask the Ark Assurance Agency in Tyler, Texas. After 2 years of radio and TV ads at the same time every day on the same stations, the insurance agency says its steady growth stems from local advertising. According to Insurance Journal, the agency was seeing an influx of people move into the area, but those new residents were not aware of the company’s existence and were not becoming customers. Having never tried advertising avenues outside of the telephone book, Art Assurance decided to give it a whirl. The TV ad spots cost less than they expected. After carefully choosing available and affordable time slots and developing commercials to appeal to their target audience, they started running local television advertising. With some success there, they turned to local radio advertising for added marketing exposure. It worked.

Like many advertising  methods, some patience was required. Two years later, the Ark Assurance radio ads have caught on and have spurred additional business. Brand recognition takes time to build with potential customers. Targeting a local radio and television audience for your local brand can work, but you must know who your potential customers are and where to find them. Combining several types of advertising for a multi-faceted campaign gives it an extra boost.

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Newspaper Advertising on the Rebound

Friday, July 30th, 2010

Newspaper advertising is looking up. Gannett Co., publisher of USA Today and about 100 other newspapers, has announced its second quarter ad revenue is slowing in its decline. While the company also has television and Internet holdings, the steady downward slope in newspaper advertising has taken its toll on the corporate giant over the past three years.

In that same time span, The New York Times has also reported newspaper ad revenue decline. It reported an increase in overall revenue this quarter, thanks to the rise in digital marketing. The newspaper advertising revenue is still down, like Gannett’s, but the diversity of offerings is helping to offset losses.

Many newspapers are bolstering their readership by offering special deals to online subscribers and those who also receive the newspaper at home. The higher the readership, the more likely a newspaper ad is to be seen. This is good news for the local advertiser.

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Google Releases Local Advertising Tags

Friday, July 16th, 2010

Google has released a new local advertising feature for local businesses with Google Map results or Google Place Pages called Tags. The tags appear as a small yellow conversation box underneath the URL of a listing that is highlighted with blue font. Although this feature is not free and allegedly will not improve organic search rankings, it does draw the searcher’s eye directly to the tagged listing.

Once a local business has created a Google page or Google Maps listing and verified it by mail, it can now emphasize important information right under the search result. For example, if a business wants potential customers to know about a special coupon, time-sensitive promotion, website, menu, photos, or the need for reservations, any of those blurbs can be added below the initial result. The tags are customizable, meaning they can be changed at any time to promote different deals or report recent news.

The flat monthly fee for a tag is $25. Google clearly indicates which listings are sponsored and which are free, much like regular organic searching, but unlike other paid ads, the listings are still integrated within one list of businesses in the middle of the page, rather than being positioned on the top or right side of the result page.

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Colorado Bank Targets Local TV Audience

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

Residents of Lakewood, Colo. and the surrounding area are the target audience for eFirstBank’s recent ad campaign. The television spots are promoting savings accounts at the bank and highlights its online features. The local marketing campaign is targeting a variety of adult audiences with three different spots. One focuses on middle-aged to older consumers with the idea that a savings account at eFirstBank is better than a get-rich-quick scheme. With other local TV ads, they are highlighting mobile alerts that will let you know about trouble before it happens and a shorter time on hold with round-the-clock customer service.

The bank is attempting to reach a variety of demographics through its commercials. They are running the local TV advertising spots during popular sporting events, such as Wimbledon, the soccer World Cup and baseball’s World Series. This is likely to catch the eye of upper income potential clientele. FirstBank is also targeting a slightly younger, more technologically savvy bunch during such shows as “Parenthood” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

The bank has branches in Arizona, California and Colorado. This is not the first local marketing campaign they have run with the help of TDA Advertising & Design in nearby Boulder, but it is definitely garnering attention. The TV spots are running from now through the fall, with emphasis on the dynamic 30- and 60-second commercials prompting people to switch to eFirstBank.com.

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Billboard Advertising Is Worth Its Weight In Gold

Friday, June 11th, 2010

Do you think billboard advertising doesn’t attract enough attention? Think again. Science World in Vancouver, BC has a new ad worth its weight in gold. The new outdoor advertising campaign by Science World spotlights the Treasure! exhibit that shares the lore of lost gold from pirates, shipwrecks and fortune hunters. It opened in May. The 200-square-foot billboard is covered in gold. Two ounces were flattened out into thin sheets and then installed for a 2-day guarded stay on a busy Vancouver road. The sign reads: “2 oz. of gold can cover a billboard.”

While it may seem a curious approach to the typical local advertiser, the $11,000 sign is doing its job. Targeted for local advertising efforts, it has now gotten international notoriety with its use of gold leaf. The sign has since been moved as planned into the Science World building and is on display until September.

Another billboard in Vancouver was recently covered in fake diamonds by the same advertising agency to announce its message and pique travelers’ curiosity. While most outdoor advertising is not as eye-catching, it does market to a broad audience and can get results. Billboards are a unique venue for advertisers that want to think outside the box. It doesn’t have to be a simple black-and-white text message or even a graphic design. It can be used to attract attention when used as a creative platform to promote your local business. You don’t need diamonds or gold to do it, just a vivid imagination, skilled fabricator and great location to reach your audience.

Image courtesy of Science World

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Kraft Fires Up Mac and Cheese On All Cylinders

Friday, May 28th, 2010

Macaroni and cheese is one of those classic comfort foods that kids love and adults love to remember. Kraft Foods has long been its champion, and has recently launched a national and localized advertising campaign geared toward adults to recapture the magic. Rather than a simple TV ad campaign, the company has chosen to go in all directions, with outdoor billboards, Internet advertising, social media marketing, print ads and even some unconventional methods. It is an all-out multi-media blitz.

Anyone watching the season finale of American Idol this week saw the campaign’s on-air kick-off. According to the New York Times, the company plans to drop more than $50 million on their Kraft Macaroni and Cheese product promotions this year. The company is showing a great example of how advertising diversity can boost a brand, and is clearly going after the most popular venues to air their wares.

It seems that each of the different types advertising is geared toward adults in a slightly different demographic, but appeals to a wide cross-over audience. In social media, for example, the company is focused on Facebook and Twitter users. Their “You Know You Love It” website has a mobile-friendly set-up for those on the go. It is also touches toward the head of household-types through classic Internet marketing with recipes and an online game that features instant coupons for the winner. For the offline versions, look to the print and billboard ads that tout “The most fun you can have with your stove on.” Giant macaroni sculptures are appearing in large cities and sports venues.

Kraft has changed its focus from being an economical food to one that is fun and whimsical. Firing on all cylinders, they are using both ends of the advertising spectrum to garner attention and boost the sales of not only their familiar blue box, but the entire mac and cheese line. It is clear from the diversity in marketing methods that Kraft means business. After only a few days into the campaign, it already appears to be working.

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CitySearch Unleashes Local Listings

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

CitySearch hasn’t been as popular as it once was as a city guide since the birth of sites like Urbanspoon, Yelp, and even location-based social networks like Gowalla or Foursquare; however, they’ve now launched CityGrid, a platform that they hope will become a powerful tool for local advertisers everywhere, as well as an easy way to bring their sizeable listings and extensive content to the public.

For businesses trying to break into the online local advertising space, CityGrid offers a viable alternative to simply becoming a part of Google local listings or the Adwords program. The main point of this launch seems to be to establish a place online for CitySearch apart from the major search engines, and on the side of smaller businesses, and it seems to be working. At the end of last year, CityGrid aggregated more than 500,000 paying advertisers, enhanced listings and content for 15 million businesses and attracted over 100 million unique users across 100 web and mobile sites.

According to TechCrunch, “Local merchants can sign up to get sponsored spots in search and elsewhere, and they pay for things like every time someone clicks on their menu, a video, their own merchant description, or makes a phone call for a reservation. They are paying for leads, and the same actions trigger payments on partner sites as well. But in that case, Citysearch is splitting the ad revenue with the publisher.”

Organic traffic can be hard to secure, especially in a competitive industry. Many local advertisers are starting to find that paid advertisements work best for them, in which case, CityGrid might be worth a try.

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When Does Local Stop Being Local?

Friday, April 16th, 2010

How does a newspaper’s location affect local advertising? Just ask The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. As of next week, it will no longer be in Atlanta. The newspaper is moving to Dunwoody, Ga. not at its Marietta Street location where it has been since the Civil War. The newspaper is moving out beyond what any self-respecting Atlantan calls Atlanta. They refer to it as OTP, outside the perimeter. It’s not in the city anymore.

No, the newspaper is not changing its name to The Dunwoody Journal-Constitution. But it begs the question advertisers must ask. Will this move affect their local advertising campaigns? Will the newspaper lose readership because it has moved to suburbia and is no longer in the city? The newspaper has made several changes in the past few years. This is just one more.

The newspaper’s line is that it will not have any change in its news coverage, only in publishing and operating costs. While the news staff has been cut dramatically over the past year, the newspaper’s owner, Cox Newspapers, may be simply making its advertising dollars stretch even more.

For the local advertiser, the only change that should be seen is if the readership drops. Will anyone really notice, or much less care about where the employees drive to every day? Not likely, but still debatable.

Newspaper advertising works well in many industries, despite the forum’s slow decline in readership over the years. It is still successful, especially for coupons and local marketing. Although it will be interesting to see the statistics at the end of the year, as long as people are still getting their news – and their newspapers – they will still get their advertisements. The practical thought is that the effect of local advertising in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will probably not change. If anything, its little boost in the news at moving might even bring it a little more business. And that’s got to be good for the local advertiser.

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Online Advertising Revenues Reach Record High

Friday, April 9th, 2010

The possibilities of marketing on the internet are certainly global, and the potential audiences are unlimited. However, with the increasing amount of resources available online and the increasing amount of time people are spending online, even local businesses are finding that and online marketing presence is absolutely crucial. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau’s recent report, online advertising revenues reached a record quarterly high of $6.3 billion at the end of this past quarter.

While print advertisements and traditional media outlets are still important for local business marketing, businesses need to reach their customers where they are, and they are online. Compared to traditional broadcast and print media, 17% of ad budgets were allocated to the web, which has risen from 8% in 2008. This is a number that has been increasing over the past several years, proving that the Internet is a more significant part of ad budgets and marketing plans than ever before.

One of the most traditional fundamentals of online advertising is search, which garners 47% of the money spent towards ads online. Digital video advertising, however, saw the most growth between 2008 and 2009, climbing by almost 39%.  The report also suggested that local online advertising would grow by 31% and local paid search could increase by 86%. Whether the numbers prove to be that drastic or not, one thing is for sure – any business, whether local or otherwise, will find their customers most easily online.

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