Case Study: Washington Capitals
Advertising.com's geographic targeting solution gave the Washington Caps' the ability to hone in on their local audience without limiting reach across the Internet. The Advertiser LeadBack portion retargeted current and prospective fans that had shown interest in the team, and got them back to the Caps website. Advertising.com successfully increased brand awareness and boosted ticket sales reaching 256,000 unique visitors daily and delivering over 19 million impressions on 500 websites. The Advertising.com creative team boosted the Caps' messaging shown through increased click-through rates.
Executive Summary
Advertising.com's unparalleled reach and retargeting solutions effectively sliced through DC area sports marketing competition and reinforced the Washington Capitals's message, boosting ticket sales and bringing the Caps's brand back to the forefront of professional hockey.
Testimonial
"Advertising.com's network has given the Capitals an unprecedented ability to reach a fragmented fan base and help drive ticket sales and overall brand awareness in a very challenging market. The Advertising.com platform provides us flexibility to simultaneously create multiple campaigns, across multiple audience bases, and test which one(s) best drive ticket sales. This sort of iterative process allows us to “learn” more about the effectiveness of our advertising and be much more analytical in measuring the return on investment."
Tim McDermott, CMO, Washington Capitals
Products / Solutions Used
- Advertiser LeadBack
- Geographic Targeting
Objectives
With four other pro-sports teams in the DC area all competing for sports fans' attention, the Washington Capitals needed something more than a winning season to stand out from the crowd; they needed to outshine the competition from the Redskins, Wizards, Nationals and DC United. The Caps were almost one season away from the NHL lockout they had previously experienced which led to the cancellation of the '04-'05 season. They needed to attract new fans and bring back old ones to the Verizon Center. The Caps came to Advertising.com in hopes to increase their brand awareness and more importantly, put fans back in empty seats.
Strategy
Advertising.com leveraged complementary reach and retargeting solutions to communicate the Caps' brand message: Geographic targeting and Advertiser LeadBack. The geographic targeting campaign reached people across the greater DC area including Northern Virginia and Baltimore, and the Advertiser LeadBack campaign targeted fans that had already clicked on a Caps ad or had been to the Caps homepage in the last 30 days.
This campaign was scheduled to coincide with the beginning of hockey season running from mid-September through the end of December. The Caps supplied Advertising.com with their creative ads and requested that our Creative Services team design a set of creatives to run concurrently. Advertising.com's creative team built two rich media banner creatives designed to engage the Caps' target audience and build awareness for the team. The banners included an interactive mini hockey game and a scrolling ticker that displayed upcoming games and events
