This may be a bit of “old news,” but very interesting nonetheless. Under Armour, an athletic apparel company and siphon of my money, leveraged real-time customer data and online display ads to promote winter sales during the holiday season.
In an effort to generate excitement for its products by creating “relevant and engaging” ads, the company launched a promotion for their holiday gift guide by using Google’s lightbox ad format.
Under Armour targeted 18-34 year old consumers via the Google Display Network through their interest, category and keyword targeting. With this targeting they were able to see that men and kids apparel was generating the most interest, so they tweaked social posts to their 2.6M Facebook fans and 270,000 Twitter followers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday to feature more of those products:
Overall the effort lead to an engagement rate that doubled upon launch, although no specific sales numbers were available.
This campaign really shows the value in digital advertising in its ability to generate real-time data that a brand can use to adjust their campaigns for maximum effectiveness, particularly at such an important time for B2C brands. It’s just not something readily available with TV, print or other forms of “traditional” advertising.
