Sorry, We Are Not In Right Now

Hi,

Thanks for checking out our blog, we really appreciate it.

However, our blog has moved to http://travel2dot0.wordpress.com/

Sorry that you have to visit another site to find us, but it is worth it...we have all of our 'classic' posts and comments on the new blog, plus a ton of new thoughts and ideas.

Why are we moving? Basically, Blogger failed us and never responded to our emails and requests. A clear example of poor customer service...too bad, we liked Blogger.

Come over and see us on the new blog.

Regards,
Troy and Mo

Monday, October 22, 2007

Where Did The Abominable Snowman Go? Or, how Ski Utah confused me with this ad


While I was doing some research for an upcoming presentation, I stumbled across a perfect case study showing the value of connectivity and a common theme throughout your entire interactive advertising campaign, rather than just good creative.

Thoughts// I was reading an article on Mashable.com, a non-skiing, social-networking/technology blog, when this Ski Utah ad caught my eye. First of all, this is not the typical place where I would be looking for a Ski Utah (or any travel / outdoor) advertisement. Usually the site is filled with either tech banners or ads for cheap laptops.

Secondly, my family and I are taking an annual ski trip to Utah this January, so I am automatically interested, the perfect customer / demo / target. Speaking of which, I will assume that since I have visited the skiutah.com site in the past few months that Ski Utah either (A) has re-targeted me using behavioral targeting (which would also explain why the ad was on Mashable.com) or (B) they got really, really lucky. I am going to guess it some form of option A.

So at this point, I have seen the creative, which is quite good. An Abominable Snowman (or Yeti if you prefer) is seen in the snow-filled banner, holding hand-written signs like a hitch-hiker. The signs display copy such as '500 inches of snow a year', 'skiutah.com' and 'I will ride in the trunk. Seriously.'

So, I stop in the middle of my research, in the middle of my day, at work, to click this banner. I am thinking, okay, I will be taken to the yeti's website, see what his favorite resorts are, maybe the snow report and then visit the yeti's MySpace page.

At this point, I am getting ready to send out custom yeti email greeting cards to my whole family. I am that excited about skiing.

So, I click.

And I get...

Nothing.

Well, I should not say 'nothing.' The banner sends me to the skiutah.com homepage, which is a very well developed site in it's own right, like I said, I go there all the time during ski season. But I was looking for a yeti, an abominable snowman, heck, a regular snowman at this point. Alas, nothing, just the standard homepage that I have seen before. I already know when the resorts open, I know what resort I am going to, I have seen the fantastic, snow-laden pictures and no, I don't need a winter vacation planner.

The ad showed me a yeti. I want yeti-branded wallpaper, a special deal that would have encouraged me to visit (read, spend more money) another resort or a snow report widget for my desktop that I could obsess over for the next 67 days! I clicked and I wanted something in return.

They had me, the creative got me interested and I was ready to accept any Ski Utah propaganda that came my way. As Mo would say, I was ready to become the next Ski Utah brand advocate. All that was left was to connect a good creative execution with the rest of the visitation experience...

Instead, I clicked the back button.

Back to my research.

2 comments:

Mo said...

Goes to show you shouldn't be planning your vacation at work huh? Oh wait....you're in interactive marketing so it's "RESEARCH"! heh

Troy said...

Exactly. My whole online life is one big market research case.