Commentary

Yes, Display Ads Can Work -- And Benefit Search As Well

"Since the early settlement of this part of the country, it has been known to the inhabitants of the vicinity that there was a spot somewhere along the ledge of the rocks on the side of the mountain north of the stream from which issued a strong current of cold air -- so strong indeed that in summer it chilled the hunter as he passed near it. It was familiarly called the 'Blowing Rock,' and no person ever ventured to remove the underbrush and rubbish that obscured the entrance, lest probably some hobgoblin or wild beast should pounce upon him as legal prey."

 

Hobgoblin, indeed.  I wish people still wrote like that. The unaccredited author is describing Howe Caverns in upstate New York.  While perhaps not nationally known, if you had grown up within 100 miles of the site, or frequented the area for summer vacations, you would be familiar with the attraction.  Perhaps, too, you would recall billboards on Interstate 90 with the image of an intrepid young boy, lantern in hand, venturing into the unexplored depths of one of the largest caves on the Eastern seaboard.  (And perhaps you, too, experienced crushing disappointment when the tour commenced and no lanterns were handed out, the entire cave being well-lit by recessed isle lighting, giving the cave all the foreboding of a twilight stroll across your back patio).

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I remember these things, though I have not thought of them in a decade or more.  My memory was recently triggered, however, by a well-placed and well-designed banner ad promoting the attraction.  By "well-placed," I mean it was well-timed (summer Saturday morning) and well-targeted (shown to me, someone within driving distance, on a highly reputable national news and opinion website).  And by, "well designed," I mean that it was visually stunning, attention-grabbing, and inviting of discovery. 

I found the entire experience incredibly compelling for three reasons.  First, this was an incredibly effective banner ad: a 468x60, no less.  Many senior marketing executives with whom I speak have written off banner advertising altogether and focus their online efforts exclusively on search marketing.  The problem with search marketing, however, is that it doesn't scale.  In order to create more scale these executives focus on television, radio, and even print, having written off demand creation via online ads as a waste of time and money.  The Howe Caverns ad demonstrates that demand creation online is possible, so long as the targeting and the creative come together in just the right way.  This is hard to execute, and likely why so many have given it up.

Thus, the second reason I found this experience notable.  How is it that Howe Caverns, a regional tourist attraction with the limited resources of such, is getting this right when so many others are getting it wrong?  I tried to figure out who executed the creative, but could not track it down.  Either way, I tip my hat to them, and not only for the creative itself but for the aforementioned ad placement and targeting as well.  I am really curious to know how they conceived and executed the strategy, (and I think it's fair to assume there was a strategy here and not just dumb luck).   

The third and final reason I dwell on the experience of seeing the Howe Caverns ad is because of what happened after I saw it.  I was curious, and began searching for information.  Who owns Howe Caverns and how are they financing an honest to goodness online campaign?  What have they done to the caverns in the 25 years since I last visited?  And can I finally explore its full depths at my leisure by the light of an oil lantern?  This dynamic is how interactive advertising is supposed to work: awareness compels information gathering, and information gathering compels action. 

What has made search so powerful as an advertising vehicle is its hyper-relevance and its democratic access.  To date nothing has come close to matching search in its utility to advertisers and consumers alike, and its appeal to a broad spectrum of small, medium and large businesses. 

What Howe Caverns has done, however, demonstrates a new frontier opening in the advertising landscape, in which small and medium-sized businesses can execute effectively and deliver results that are, if not as effective, at least as compelling as those generated through search.  And given the interplay between display advertising and search activity, these businesses should be able to use this new opportunity to better scale their already effective search campaigns.  Ten years ago it was small and mid-sized businesses who first harnessed the opportunity in search marketing after it was forgotten and passed over by larger advertisers.  Is that dynamic playing out again in online display?   

3 comments about "Yes, Display Ads Can Work -- And Benefit Search As Well".
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  1. Brian Ferrario from Rocket Fuel Inc., September 11, 2009 at 2:11 p.m.

    Keep writing about this...

    Something we have to remind clients all the time -- as they retreat into search...and ditch display -- they're missing the huge effect that the combination of search and display provide for both DR and brand objectives -- online and surprisingly even offline.

    We usually bring up the 2006 study by comScore entitled "Close the Loop: Understanding Search and Display Synergy."

    It found that online users who were exposed to both the search and display advertising campaigns increased their share of page views relative to competitive sites by 68 percent, and time spent by 66 percent.

    More importantly, among those exposed to both the search and display ads, purchases of the advertiser's products and services increased by 244 percent online and 89 percent offline compared to online users with similar behavior who were not exposed to these ads.

  2. Tiffany Lyman Otten from Tiffany Otten Consulting, LLC, September 11, 2009 at 4:26 p.m.

    Harvest Digitial did a similar article, based on Atlas Research information, in which they state that when exposed to a banner ad, 26% of those interested will click, while 74% of those interested will "Google" it later. I find that mirriors my own activity almost perfectly, and when discussing it with my clients, they agree.

    It can be due to banner blindness, being "on task" when on a site and only seeing it once navigating away (my usual cause), or any other number of reasons.

    So, ultimately I advise them to make sure there is something memorable and easy to search for in the banner content, and ultimately, that they are optimized in search for what someone will search for because, in all reality, search for banner topics will make up 3/4 of the eventual traffic that ad will cause.

    Subsequently, of course, it's that much harder to measure. You can measure organic traffic based on company name, and maybe one or two key terms in the banner (though that's harder), but it can never be 100% attribution. And, frankly, I think 100% attribution is mostly a myth anyhow with any *successful* marketing *mix*.

    Great article, thanks for posting... and btw, I am a local to the area (relatively) and plan on tracking down said strategist!

  3. Amanda Wheeler from Wanderlust, September 29, 2009 at 9:32 a.m.

    Matt-

    I tracked down this link through a Google Alert for Howe Caverns. I am the Director of Media Integration at Wanderlust, a travel and destination marketing agency in upstate New York.

    We have been the agency for Howe Caverns for just about two years. When we began working with Howe Caverns, we started with a comprehensive brand overhaul, which included a new logo and look for the attraction, as well as a new media strategy. We spent a lot of time on research to determine where the brand needed to go to better speak to their target audience (moms with kids) and how to reach them. We weren't able to put big dollars into online media for 2008, but budgets freed up in 2009 allowing us to not only buy traditional media for Howe Caverns (television and radio), but also increase their spend in online media (both banner advertising and SEM).

    Our strategy for buying was simple: find out where our customers might be coming from, and geo-target banner ads to those areas. We looked at reports from visits from prior years to determine the DMAs we would purchase, as well as areas local to the cave (short driving distance). We received proposals from many of the major banner ad networks and chose the one we felt had the best inventory. We also worked with a company called Spongecell to incorporate video into some of their banner ads (we leveraged the :30 commercial we had created earlier this year for cinema and television advertising). We also created a new website with a content management system, which allows them to update content as needed (www.howecaverns.com).

    Thanks for writing this post-

    Amanda Wheeler
    www.createwanderlust.com
    awheeler@createwanderlust.com

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