Ping is running a new ad campaign called The Locker Room. For this post the ad itself is unimportant; it’s the lack of synergy between online and offline that I’d like to cover.
The URL they use in the TV ad is:
I find 4 things wrong with this campaign.
- Do not use an underscore in a URL you want people to type into a browser. Most golfers (the general population) don’t know where the underscore symbol is on a keyboard. Nobody uses the underscore in their daily Word/computer tasks. Because of this, they are already hamstringing their ability to generate traffic to this page.
- Be sure to cover the bases. For those that don’t remember the URL, they may try typing in either ping.com/locker-room or ping.com/lockerroom, both of which point to a dead page (404). This is a 30 second job to fix, but it wasn’t considered for launch.
- There isn’t a link to this page from the homepage of the site. All the money and effort that went into this TV campaign, and there isn’t even a way for someone to get form the homepage to it. Think of all the people that remember the ad, but not the /locker_room portion of the URL. I’d be willing to bet their analytics will show an increase to homepage visitors, and an increase in their bounce rate for the next month or two, which equates to a failed campaign.
- Add some value for those that actually make it. When one lands on the page, the first thing they see is a big block of text that reads “PING Locker Room Coming Soon.” Seriously? Then they have the ability to do one of two things: View the TV ads (yawn), or click on a link to the homepage. Wow.
Now, I’ve been in big companies enough to know that at times the advertising team doesn’t communicate with the web team, and that this happens more often than it should.
That being said, I think this is a perfect example of why companies believe that online doesn’t work. Poor execution is the cause of more failed campaigns than I can count. Executives who are only aware of the strategy and not tactics will potentially see this campaign as a failure, hindering their faith in the online channel going forward.
A boss of mine once told me to give every campaign the best possibility to succeed. Then if it doesn’t succeed, it was probably a poor strategy. If it does succeed, you know you will get the maximum benefit from it. In Ping Golf’s case, they aren’t giving this campaign the best chance to succeed, and it’s a shame.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh my goodness! This should have been resolved in the alpha testing of the ad campaign… when you do a beta launch to friends/family/etc. why would no one tell them about it?! This is beyond basic… for all it’s worth, I could have designed this with my limited-to-none knowledge of HTML and marketing strategies.
Big FAIL on the ad production Ping.
Good catch @danperry!
Dan
Another great example of how large brands drop the ball and simply fail at integrating offline and online strategies.
See it all the time.
Brian
I don’t think I’d be quite as hard on them as you are. They haven’t even launched the community yet. It seems to be more of first phase where they wanted to get their commercials viewed while they’re working on the meat of the project. Is it possible that it’s intentional to NOT have a link to this page from the homepage until they’re ready?
However, agree with you on all your points about creating URL’s, making them simple to type in and remember – that’s kind of a no-brainer.
@Liz Good point: It may be intentional to leave the link off the homepage. It aids in measurement, but if the analytics house is in order, it’s not as big of a deal as once thought.
I also don’t think I was too hard on them. It is what it is. A lot of budget and resources were put behind the TV campaign, and at this point, for basically nothing.
It’s even more painful to see now. The Masters winner yesterday is a PING player, and although I may be mistaken, the “magic” putter Kenny Perry has been using is a year old PING mallet. I’m expecting a release from the PING PR department any minute.
All of the deserved hype is going to drive even more action to the website for users interested in The Locker Room. Once there, there’s nothing to do but leave the site disappointed.
The true pain point is that the early adopters (which are easily the most sought after online audience, or should be) have probably already been there, seen it’s worthless and left, never to return. The chance for building a community just got cut off at the knees.
Thank you for responding. Your opinion matters, and I’m glad you commented. Ironically, I thought the URL part wouldn’t be the no-brainer (easy to miss); I thought having something (anything) there other than an “Under Construction” page would be the no-brainer.
P.S. Over the weekend, I thought of one more misstep.
#5 Not buying campaign keyterms to support initiative. When I go to Google and type in “PING Locker Room”, there isn’t one paid ad. For the cost of a nickel, they could have pulled that searcher in. Instead, they’re just forcing them to try another way to find what they have to offer. Making it difficult for users to find you is never a good campaign strategy.