Friday, December 15, 2006
Posted By: Jenny Reynolds, Account ManagerLast week, the marketers for the California Milk Advisory began a unique outdoor campaign. They plastered "Got Milk" advertisements inside bus shelters throughout the city, while infusing the bus shelters with the smell of fresh-baked cookies in hopes of enticing commuters to drink milk.
Unfortunately, the campaign came to an end when "activitists complained that the aroma could trigger asthma attacks and allergic reactions in people who are scent sensitive." (SFGate)
Although this unique approach to capture consumers did not fully bake, we think it could have stirred up a lot of buzz. We heard people talking about it even before the bus shelters were set up with the cookie scent. So we thought about how to connect this campaign online, and a Google Map seemed like the perfect complement. Dennis Domingo, our Sales Engineer, drew up a Google Maps demo featuring the Muni Station locations participating in this campaign. If the California Milk Advisory Board wanted to highlight where commuters could find these locations on a website, they could have designed and embedded a custom Google Map.
A locally-targeted keyword campaign driving users to this website and the map would have been a great way to close the online/offline loop. But there's no crying over spilt milk (or phantom cookies). Let's keep these ideas in mind for another time.
