Missed Opportunity:

I have been thinking the last few days. State Farm is running a fantastic TV campaign with Lebron James. Have you seen these ads yet? Garage and Cleveland Browns. I think this partnership is great between the two parties because of the brilliance of the commercials. The ads highlight Lebron’s fun, youthful, outgoing personality and are done in a very creative,memorable way. The ads are making an impact. People are talking about these spots. The internet is buzzing about them, people are talking around the water cooler about them (especially in Cleveland), I have received a few emails with links to watch the videos, all because the ads are funny, creative, and contain the best player in the NBA. Kudos to State Farm for this partnership.

Lebron is benefiting just as much as State Farm because he is allowing the public to see the side of him that is away from the basketball court. The creativity of the ads along with Lebron’s personality and mass appeal are what are making these ads memorable and getting people to extend the conversation past the 30 second spot. Making LBJ that much more appealing as a spokesman ala Michael Jordan to other companies looking to connect to the youth market. Marketing Lebron as a wide receiver for the Browns….Brilliant! Lebron doing the Kid N Play Dance in a Garage…Great concept again…Both spots are very well done and very creative.

However, there is a missed opportunity here for State Farm and it’s a big one. Where is the search advertising component? How many Cleveland Browns fans are on the internet every day? Could you start a search campaign directing football and Browns fans to watch the Wide Receiver commercial directly on StateFarm.com? How many people search daily for information on Lebron? What if you put a few text ads in front of people looking for the latest info on Lebron to entice them to watch the latest LBJ commercial on StateFarm.com? State Farm is missing out on a massive opportunity to extend their reach to the individuals on the internet and generate more views of these spots. I went into Google’s Adwords this morning to test my theory. Using just 4 keywords of Lebron, Lebron James, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Cleveland Browns, State Farm is missing out on an estimated 800 visits to their website each day. Now extend this search campaign out to contain more words and you begin notice the impact of what State Farm is missing out on.

The spots are getting people to talk about ads. But the conversation is happening on the internet. How do I know because when I first saw the garage spot, I googled it and expected to see a text ad from State Farm directing me to their website to re-watch the spot. But, it never appeared. Instead I was directed to other blog posts and YouTube which were talking about the spot. The Garage Spot has 37,055 plays on State Farm’s channel, while the Cleveland Browns spot has 23,995 plays to date on the channel. These plays do not even account for viewings that have occurred directly on other websites or that other users have uploaded. What if State Farm was directing people to their site to watch the ads online? The additional cost to run the ad only occurs if someone clicks the text ad. They don’t have to buy additional air time on TV. They extend their brand, extend the life the campaign, reach more people directly, and increase the awareness of their company, all pretty positive things for State Farm if you ask me. Plus what if after I watched the ad online State Farm had a special offer targeted at me to take advantage of while I was on their site watching the spots?

Now do you see why it’s so important to have a search advertising strategy in place for your company?

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