If you haven't heard about RPA's successful campaign for the Honda Element, you're missing out on a great learning experience.
The campaign overall incorporated television, a Web site and search to motivate visitors to enter into and interact with a group of cute animals that included a platypus, a talking crab, a lizard and a possum.
From the point-of-view of search, what they did was really innovative and smart. Not only did they purchase keywords that related to automobiles and Hondas (HMC), but they added real inexpensice keywords like "possum," "funny," "hairy," and "lizard." Many of those types of words were purchased for 10 cents in comparison to brand name keywords like "Honda element" which went at $1.15. This shows the importance of going beyond your most obvious words to those you can use in co-ordination with your campaign.
How did the search element of the campaign perform?
RPA said that the search aspect of the budget accounted for almost 40 percent of all responses. And that's with a budget share that was barely over 10 % of the budget total.
RPA's Mike Margolin commented that the animal-related keywords did not bring in the largest share of traffic, but, at an average of 10 to 15 cents per click, were far less expensive than car-related keywords.
Bob Heyman of search insider says:
"Of course, the entire campaign had a high fun quotient. The micro-site incorporates an online game in which visitors drive a Honda around an island and can have conversations with the critters. But it is not often that search gets to join in the fun.
"By buying words outside the car sector (they also bought words like "funny," "freaky" and "hairy"), RPA and Honda extended the sprit of the campaign to search, and those search ads (according to their research) helped lift awareness, brand favorability and purchase intent. And think about it: the only competition they had for "possum" keywords were Pest Exterminators and T-shirt merchants."
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