Must be that time of season?  Lots of new brands showing up, and one trend that I've always been a huge fan of is geo-targeting.  In case you are out of the loop on this one, basically we are able to serve online ads by country, by state, area code....you name it.

So when a large outdoor brand approached with a new watch they wanted to promote, their savvy marketing team wanted to showcase the item based in states that had the highest percentage of the "elite" and "super active" outdoor enthusiasts.

Put another way, they didn't want their ad showing up to folks in areas that weren't using the web for outdoor product research.  A focused media buy. Nice!

The map above shows a real time image of where your customers are currently living.  You can assume that based on the seasons this changes over time, but as it stands CA ranks #1 right now.  Here is a small portion of the list:

California 17% New York 6% Colorado 6% Texas 5% Pennsylvania 4% Washington 4% Massachusetts 3% North Carolina 3% Arizona 3% Virginia 3% Oregon 3% Illinois 3% Utah 3% Ohio 2% Florida 2% Georgia 2% Maryland 2% New Jersey 2% Tennessee 2% Michigan 2% Minnesota 1% Missouri 1% Nevada 1% Arkansas 1% Alabama 1%

In the case of Denny's Super Bowl campaign, apparently a lot.  Imagine my joy upon seeing this go live, ultra hot wings in one hand, craft micro brew in another.  I already had a 1AM breakfast in mind, so the timing was great.  

So....like everyone else on the planet I pulled out the phone and starting searching for the Denny's in my area.  WOW.  What the heck happened?  You can lead a horse to water but someone dropped the ball.  Great write up here:

Denny's Super Bowl Fumble

With all the ads for outdoor brands that come across my desk, I was really surprised to see that the problem moves up the food chain as well.  In the case with Denny's, here is a national brand, large ad budget, agency involvement and they made the classic mistake of not thinking ahead for all the engagement paths "soon to be" customers would take upon seeing their campaign.

For us its the same.  Gear locators, store locators, event locators.  I can't tell you how many times I see a branding campaign come through where the outdoor brand isn't doing enough to link the store locator to the campaign?  The fact that Denny's screwed this up does lessen the bite, but with them it's a breakfast.  A consumer meal.  Impulse.  You've had one egg you've had them all. 

With outdoor gear, the staying power of a correct follow-on engagement at the consumer level is more lasting.  With some of the gear and clothing out there, we're talking about a few years.  So the potential risk for messing this up, IMO, is greater.  This is why it pays to ask, upfront, for all your media campaigns the following:

- Would a Geo-Targeted campaign better achieve our objectives?
- Does the online network or publisher offer frequency caps?
- What is the call to action on the web banner and how many different ways can a consumer reach us on the web?  Is the message consistent across all fronts?
- What would happen to my ROI if I just focused on markets where I have a retail footprint, instead of targeting the entire nation with a more branded message?

BTW, I missed the breakfast today.  I had big plans to get up early and hit a location on the way to work, but it was so out of the way and in an area I've never been that even with a map I didn't want to bother.  Had toast and coffee instead.