So our client, The Diet Plate (a medical device which shows you how much you should be eating from each food group) has paid a small fortune to bring out the doctor advisor guy from the British version of The Biggest Loser for a PR junket. He’s going to be on virtually every chat show and current affairs program in the country spruiking the virtues of portion control as a weight loss tool, and of course, telling everyone how great The Diet Plate is. They’d been hoping for a slow news week. What they got was quite the opposite. You could blow up the Sydney Harbour Bridge today and no one would notice*. Not quite the way I wanted to launch the first new client of my new agency (memery, more on that later).
Rather than moan about how we were going to get buried, we thought we’d run some ads taking advantage of the situation. It was too late to book anything anywhere, so we thought Google AdWords would do the trick.
Within an hour of the news about Julia Gillard taking the top office breaking we had an ad up targeting anyone who searched Google for her name. Here’s what it looked like (first ad at the top on the right):
While we were on the band-wagon, we also ran ads targeting the other political leaders, the copy was as follows:
Targeting ‘Kevin Rudd‘ searches
The Diet Plate
Lose weight while
eating humble pie
http://www.thedietplate.com.au
—
Targeting ‘Malcolm Turnbull’ searches
The Diet Plate
Revenge isn’t the best
dish served cold
http://www.thedietplate.com.au
—
Targeting ‘Tony Abbott’ searches
The Diet Plate
Microwave safe. In case
of global warming
http://www.thedietplate.com.au
—
Targeting ‘Bob Brown’ searches
The Diet Plate
When you want to eat
more than greens
http://www.thedietplate.com.au
—
I usually prefer writing longer copy, but it goes to show, you can have a lot of fun with two lines if you try. I’m sure Ernest Hemingway would agree.
*Don’t try this at home
Tags: Julia Gillard
Brilliant work Matt! Will you be able to share the results?
Beautiful.
Fantastic way to not mention hair colour, dress sense or feminism in any of the campaigns. Good to see an agency NOT focusing on the obvious terms that flood social media when a ‘breaking news’ tidal wave floods the media.
Noice.
So your “lesson” is, that instead of doing what you’re paid for and selling the product/service/whatever that your client hired you to do, when faced with a challenge to get some attention you should just buy some adwords for whatever people *are* interested in despite those adwords not even remotely representing or relating in any way to the product/service your client sells?
So when people search for breaking political news and opinion they’ll be served ads for some stupid diet plan? and you expect people to click on diet crap when they’re actively searching for politics.. why exactly?
Hijacking adwords that have nothing at all to do with your product is the bastard child of SPAM. you’re not clever, this isn’t some kind of brilliant plan… it’s the same old spammy dishonest PARASITIC keyword crap people have been doing for the entire existance of the internet.
Hack.
Thanks anonymous commenter above. This campaign isn’t spam any more than ads on TV are spam. You’re not sitting there watching Glee waiting for someone to hit you with some information about a mining tax. What we’re doing is jumping on a bandwagon. We’re not doing anything differently from any company sponsoring the world cup. We’re just making it slightly more amusing. The ads will run for a day or two and then they’ll be gone. And if no one clicks them or likes them in the meantime, Google will stop showing them. Lighten up.
[...] In his blog, Greenleese said: “They’d been hoping for a slow news week. You could blow up the Sydney Harbour Bridge today and noone would notice. Rather than moan about how we were going to get buried, we thought we’d run some ads taking advantage of the situation.” [...]
I agree with Tiphereth! Reckon you could share the results?
Adam, Tip, yep, I’ll absolutely share the results. We’ve had a f-tonne of impressions so far – I’ll keep you posted on sales!
“This campaign isn’t spam any more than ads on TV are spam.”
If you think online advertising should be approached in the same way TV ads are, you’re very much in the wrong job, and it’s time for you to get off my internet.
The whole point, and benefit of adword based ads is highly specific targeting and… wait for it… RELEVANCE to the audience. If I search for news about whatever the hot new playstation game of the week is, I’ll almost certainly get served ads about gaming hardware and/or software, ads that are… here’s that word again… RELEVANT to my current specific interest, and I’m extremely unlikely to even give a second glance, let alone click on something completely unrelated to what I’m looking for if for example some HACK buys gaming related adwords to present ads for cut price carpeting.
Serving ads about dieting to people looking for information about current events in national politics is not relevant.
HELL, even the people who use TV ads actually spend half a second considering when to buy airtime to actually target a market that’ll be INTERESTED in hearing about it, you’ll rarely see ads for car insurance during the Saturday morning cartoons, ever think why?
You’re still a hack, and this absurd article patting yourself on the back is moronic.
Oh ‘what?’ you’re just jealous I’m getting more media coverage than you. Even the normally narky mUmBRELLA people like the campaign (http://mumbrella.com.au/marketers-spring-into-action-as-julia-gillard-takes-control-28794). The ads are gone now anyway, it’s all over. Get over it.
And is ‘Hack’ the worst insult you can hurl from your veil of anonymity? You might as well throw in a C-Bomb since no-one knows who you are. Wait, I know exactly who you are. You’re one of those people who goes on ChatRoulette and shows themself wanking but doesn’t reveal their face. Must be hard, being an ugly, anonymous, talentless loser. Oh look, the 4th Gen iPhone is almost out. Shouldn’t you be lining up outside an Apple store by now?
‘what?’ are you on about? i think youre overthinking and underthinking this: sure TV and online are very different marketing channels but the use of disruptive marketing that utilises principles of cognitive dissonance is one of the most successful approaches known.
And i’d go so far as to argue that Matt’s campaign is incredibly relevant in a country where half the populatioon is overweight and almost 20% of our population is medically deemed obese.
[...] you’re interested in reading more about this campaign, you can read it on Matt Granfield’s blog. Touche’ Matt, you’ll put me out of a job soon mate. Share and [...]
Can I ask, who is your target market?
“you’re just jealous I’m getting more media coverage than you.”
Cute, Instead of applying logic or common sense in defense of someone questioning your choice you slip right into the “you’re just jealous” defense like some 12 year old Justin Bieber fangirl getting all pissy at someone who said he’s “gay”.
OH NO, someone doesn’t think your idea is “genius”… quickly, call them jealous and make something up to defame them… like they expose their genitals on chatroulette!!! OH OH OH, also, call them “ugly”, and talentless while simultaneously pointing out that they’re anonymous and you don’t actually have the foggiest clue if they are ugly, talentless, or even in a competing position that would actually justify any “jealousy”.
Stay Classy man… stay classy.
Don’t like the TV ad? Change channels or don’t watch it.
Dont like the sponsored link? Don’t click on it.
Bambi, our target market was exactly as ChrisRhyss suggested: “half the populatioon is overweight and almost 20% of our population is medically deemed obese”. I don’t know if those figures are spot on, but they’re close. We are, of course, running a highly targeted long-term AdWords campaign for our client based around weight loss keywords, this was just a quick thrust into the public eye.
‘what?’, you’re right, I have no clue who you are. You’re just some anonymous commenter on my blog. If you expect to be taken seriously, have some balls.
Jealousy – that jumble of secret worship and ostensible aversion.
Good job Matt.
I *kinda* agree with the point that the ads aren’t relevant.
On the other hand, they’re not intrusive either. Compared to TV, an Adword doesn’t ‘interrrupt’ the content you’re there looking for. It provides a diversion if you want to follow it up – ie if you decide it’s relevant to you personally.
And these were written to be entertaining. I wouldn’t have clicked, but I’d have laughed and had a positive response to The Diet Plate. I too am interested in the results.
What’s more, they were probably cheap as chips. You can see from the screen grab there wasn’t a lot of competition there.
And BTW I just googled Julia now and Telstra have copied your idea – imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…
…but Matt, you let yourself down when you let out the public abuse of ‘what?’. Bit disappointing in a PR person to lose your rag so publicly over one person disagreeing with you…
Matt,
Love your initiative and can’t wait to see the results. I have to agree that it technically goes against everything Google has set out to do with Adwords, but if you’re getting a decent CTR and even conversions then I don’t think anyone can argue with the relevancy of the ads.
Where you’ve lost me though is how you handled the comments from What?… I’m actually shocked that someone in the digital media business has no idea how to handle a challenging comment. You should have stuck with the facts instead of losing your cool.
Get a grip dude.
Ant
AlphaFemale and Ant, thanks for your comments, I agree with both of you, those ads weren’t in the ‘spirit’ of AdWords, but I also think it’s important to push the boundaries sometimes. As for ‘what?’, it’s my party and I’ll hang shit on anonymous commentors if I want to! I wasn’t upset because someone disagreed with me, I was making a point that if you come onto someones personal blog and anonymously call someone names, you’d better be prepared to take what you give.
Thanks Matt.
Not sure that it was a strategic action…You weren’t talking to your specific target market (unless you believe that your target is all people who are overweight which I don’t think would be effective nor achievable) and you didn’t have a targeted message nor call to action, but a fun tactic that dependent on your brand strategy (Are you wanting to convey a nicely irrelevant Aussie sense of humour from a brand/product that isn’t take things too seriously?) may have generated some awareness…
I certainly don’t agree with the way some of the criticism above has been shared – seems totally unnecessary.
And I do congratulate the speed of your ideas (You were very quick on your feet!) and the creativity – bit of fun – and you have said that it isn’t the main campaign…But though you have explained that the client came first – so I know I am wrong – it ‘felt’ like an idea that was looking for a brief (not the other way around).
Also interested to know the outcomes – and as the ROI is I am sure confidential, maybe you could share the cost?
Thanks for sharing the experience with us.