A couple of months ago I remember talking to an up and coming marketing manager about branding.  We were knee deep in ironing out a media buy when he says to me, "....why don't I just slap this up on Google Media?"  Of course, for a struggling brand, this is not a bad option.  But the one part that always amazes me is when larger companies do this without a care in the world as to who they are sharing the bed with.

A key part to branding on the web is having some control over where your ads are placed.  This is the first part (think closed network, above the fold).  The second question every major brand should be asking is, "...great, I'm on board.  Now who else will be running in my rotation?"

Not an issue for print.  You get your slot.  Not so with digital media.  Unless you buy enough impressions, someone ELSE is rotating in your position.  So what happens if you are a cutting edge brand ( think Patagonia ) and you are sharing your space with a media buy from GM.....or BP.....or Pizza Hut.  You get the point.  If you are serious about your brand, you should be serious about who you are rolling with online.  Here is an example I pulled off of BNQT:

So here on the main landing page for a "lifestyle video and young male portal" you have three players.  Converse holds down the skin, Mountain Dew grabs the leaderboard and PlanetEarth hangs out in the ATF Square.  All of these players get "it"  I could easily see a guy, aged 16, drinking a Dew, wearing his PlanetEarth Hoodie and rockin' Converse shoes.  All three play well together and its obvious that the team behind the BNQT also gets how important it is to preserve brand identity on their content ( speaking of which, I need to give these guys a call, I like their style).

So the next time someone tells you to buy on an open network, Google or some rag that is just scraping by, remember that because its cheap you may be sharing your branding "Joe's Tasty Chicken".  And that my friend is something to be avoided.

Funny thing about North Face.  Many outdoor marketers may not realize this, but TNF really drives a lot of cool innovations for online marketing and often these innovations have a trickle down effect on the market.  Over the last three years, I've seen this consistently where TNF drives a new concept online and then the other players join suit.

In this case, TNF is ramping up their efforts at Geo-Fencing.  The technology comes from Placecast as is quite compelling.  Target your outdoor enthusiast with a text based ad when they are "near" a store that carries your product.  The end user has to opt in to have this enabled, and if they are lucky they score a coupon or a textual call to action to get them inside the store.  Ahhhh....hear that?  Like a cool glass of water after hiking all day in the hot sun.  The ever so illusive "last mile" in online marketing so many out there strive for.

Link to the article that goes into the details is found here:

North Face Embraces Mobile Ads – Location-finding technology provided by LOC-AID

For brands with a limited footprint in the retail front, using something like this could certainly drive more sales, more happy retailers and a more engaged consumer.  Excellent use of technology and innovation from North Face.

Yeah I'll admit its odd to fall out of your chair when you see a new outdoor campaign on the net, but this one was more than an eye opener. 

I've been following Life is Good now for a couple of years.  They are local to our shop, actually just down the road.  So it always peeks my interest when not only do I see the "first" example of digital media from them in the wild, but a GEO target no less.  No idea if this was generated in house or who controlled the media spend.

The ad has been splashed in a nice sample of websites in around the Boston area, mostly on event publishers.  I've only seen it a couple of times, but its worthy of some comments.

First off, if you've ever been to the Life is Good site, you have a good understanding how their brand is reflected in the overall design of the site.  The same pastels that color their shirts dictates the design.  The font is super branded.  KEEN is also good at doing this type of work.  Keeping you brand in mind when you are designing your creative is key.  So, for Life is Good I'd give them an A- on this.

Here is where it gets interesting.  I've never been a huge fan of the font they use, so in this case when they have an astonishing amount of text in their ad, the font really takes over.  Take a look.  At first glance of this skyscraper ( 160x600 pixels ) right off the bat you know its Life is Good.  But that is where it ends.  There is so much text on this, your eye has a hard time focusing on what is important.  Remember, as an outdoor brand you have less than a second to draw a person to your ad as they scroll the content on the page.  Comparing the design to their landing page, it really is missing the bold graphic, young people / dark blurry background we've all come to expect from their branding.  So on contextual design, I'd give it a B.

Now for the message.  If you've been a reader here for a while, this is the BIGGIE.  The "Call to Action"  Every digital ad needs one.  And with this one, there are no less than three.  First, learn about the event.  Then they squeeze in a teaser for a free gift, then on top of that another call to action to join the fund raising effort. 

I'm scoring this with a C.  With our testing, this could have been avoided.  And the solution isn't rocket science.  The main focus is the date and location of the event.  That IS the call to action.  What they should have done is have three different ads designed, and then used some variate testing to see which had the highest CTR in a test control. 

Their end result may be a factor of limited budget for the design, or its possible the media buy did not allow for multiple ad units to be rotated through the same position.  Like I've said earlier, I've only seen the skyscraper, so there could be a leaderboard or small rectangle out there somewhere.

Score ::

Matched branding with Digital Creative : A-
Contect : B
Call to Action : C