Typically, Banyan creates several PSAs each year for The Boys Town National Hotline and YourLifeYourVoice.org to build awareness around the idea that there is somewhere troubled teens can go to reach out for help. In 2014, Boys Town was given a sponsorship from the American Legion and decided they wanted to diversify their promotional efforts with the funds. Banyan was asked to recommend a plan. With a background in advertising and a career start in media planning, I was asked to lead these promotional efforts.
Recommendation
We knew we wanted to promote the Hotline’s new texting feature to our teenage target audience. After doing some research, we determined it would be best to reach our audience around video and music content. We recommended using video content on YouTube.com and audio spots and display banners on Spotify during an eight week campaign.
Results
The efforts were a success from the start! Both Spotify and YouTube provided click-thru rates (CTRs) above industry standards. We created a channel for the brand on YouTube where viewers could watch more videos from YourLifeYourVoice.org and we could track interactions. During the campaign, the channel was viewed over 172,000 times and gained 94 subscribers, as well as several shares. The videos promoted received views above and beyond numbers reported from our promotional efforts (21% and 31% greater) meaning we received an impressive amount of organic traffic on our channel. YourLifeYourVoice.org traffic increased by 34% in comparison to the same time period the previous year.
The client was pleased with our work and found additional funding to run a second round of online promotions. We recommended creating new audio spots for the second round and placing ads on Spotify and Pandora. We ran a national campaign with Spotify and adjusted the Pandora plan mid-campaign from a national buy to target the Tallahassee and Omaha designated market areas (DMAs). Again, CTRs were above industry standards and the hotline traffic increased (both call-in and texting) nationally and within the DMAs we targeted. YourLifeYourVoice.org traffic increased by 32% in comparison to the same time period the previous year.
My Role
I researched and provided the promotion recommendations, implemented the campaigns, kept a close eye on campaign progress, and provided weekly reports and end of campaign reports for the client. The separate ad buys ran for eight weeks a piece and were optimized as necessary. Examples of the creative work used within the promotions is below.
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