Selling Cars? "Possum" Is Your Keyword

Some pretty impressive campaigns were finalists at Yahoo’s first Searchlight Awards in New York yesterday. The award goes to the most creative use of paid search in a broader advertising campaign.

The finalist brands: Miller Beer; Chase; GM and the Honda Element were indeed creative. These major advertisers aren’t going for the obvious, and more expensive, keywords and phrases on search engines. Instead, they’re buying terms that integrate with campaign creative.

RPA’s campaign for the Honda Element was the hands down winner. The creative features the car having droll little conversations with a variety of animals. So what search terms did RPA buy? Words like “element” + “possum.”

Unlikely? It worked. Search traffic to the brand’s game site hit the target demo perfectly.

Chase sold credit cards with “love the double” and Miller bought “beer run.” All achieved traffic without blowing the budget on more highly priced words and phrases.