Careful you don't get too creative on your ad campaign

An ad agency (not in Columbia) was recently boasting on their site about creating a campaign for a minor league sports team (not baseball...stop guessing). The goal of any campaign should be to make the client money. This agency had some very creative ideas to help get their sports team noticed in the community. It included motion activated messages placed inside seashells and then have those shells all over the beach and a treasure hunt to win free tickets to games where the clues are posted on their Facebook page. I asked the simple question of how does this make people want to see a game? Crickets. Ticket sales for the team had actually gone down year over year. 

Advertising, marketing, promotion whatever you want to call it can only be deemed successful if it makes the company money! And the only way to make money is build desire. If your idea doesn't make people want to experience your event, taste your food, use your service, wear your outfits, drive your cars then you can't sell them. Audi sales dropped after their 2011 Superbowl commercial won awards for creativity. They would have been better served to save the money and not advertise at all then to run this award winning campaign.