What about non-seasonal campaigns?
I spoke to John McCurdy, integrated marketing manager of family care of Kimberly Clark about a Huggies campaign that had some different conversion goals:
"The objective of the [Huggies CleanTeam campaign] was to introduce the launch of the new Huggies CleanTeam bath and body products and encourage Moms to join the CleanTeam membership. Animated characters called Alphamals (half alphabet, half animal) were developed for each CleanTeam product. Each Alphamal had a unique personality and communicated the purpose of a product representing a different aspect of bath & body hygiene. PointRoll allowed us to transform the Alphamals into life-like character through storyline creation and animations that delivered on the brand's proposition of Mom & Child 'learning through play.'"
I poked around to find out exactly how this campaign worked. True to the description, I was able to approach the ad as a parent or child. Being neither, I might add that I wasn't personally moved by the "alphamals," but I imagine that children might find the experience rather entertaining while the parents might find it educational. The ads allow for an engaging experience for the kids by including animated characters, while the margins encourage parents to read about the products in a much more adult setting, all within the margins of the ad itself. The ad included several interaction points, which could be differentiated in data collection to determine various conclusions.
According to McCurdy, "Our top success metric was brand interaction, followed by CleanTeam membership signups. Specifically, we measured success based on key brand touch-points such as interaction rates, video downloads and clickthroughs to product information. We incorporated a very simple opt-in email function to allow for quick entry into the CleanTeam membership."
"CleanTeam membership" refers to a social network the brand created to further engage parents with products and campaigns. With the buzz surrounding social media these days, such metrics are invaluable. Not only will Kimberly-Clark have an idea who its users are, but it has an open door into users' product desires and complaints, and an open window to reinforce its brand identity.
For users who are not ready to get engaged on the level of any sort of "membership," the ad opens up a type of mini-site that they can engage themselves and their children on many levels of brand interaction. Since the goal of the ad was not specifically to drive foot traffic, connecting ad interaction with actual foot traffic (as in the case with Staples) seems arbitrary and unnecessary. So why collect such metrics?
It is fairly safe to assume that when a given father/CleanTeam member, grocery shopping with his baby girl, reaches a time to make a product decision about hand soap, the child might just grab for "Henry the Hippo" rather than some generic brand. And in the end, what's a dollar or so more for a smiling, quiet child in a public place?
