WashYourHandsingTon Knows Where I Live

Posted by Rainier Sky on February 13, 2011

Have you ever wondered how an Website knows to serve you an Internet ad targeted to your location? The answer could be any number of things. It might be that your Internet Protocol address is registered near your physical location, you might have a cookie on your hard drive that reads your Web search history or, like the New York Times, you could tell them when you register to use their site. All of these and other actions help individual webmasters and users of Google Adwords, Microsoft AdCenter and other campaign tools target you by location.

Here’s an example…

This morning I was searching for a video to check out another passion of mine – soccer. I read a post on by a friend on Facebook about Wayne Rooney’s incredible bicycle kick goal giving Manchester United a 2-1 win against Manchester City early this morning and I had to check it out. I also administer a Facebook page for Federal Way United, a local select soccer club, and I am always looking for content to share. So, I Googled “Wayne Rooney bicycle kick” and the link to the Times was at the top of the results. I clicked it and there I found the banner ad above.

For some reason the banner ad directed me to the web page for the WashYourHandsingTon campaign, but they do have a nice landing page and they should probably be using it. Landing pages are suppose to answer your most immediate questions raised by the ad and direct you to more information in a quick, concise fashion. The home page of most websites are not necessarily designed for this purpose.

This public information campaign was launched by the Washington State Department of Health to encourage citizens to wash their hands regularly as a way to stave off an epidemic of H1N1 flu. Its clever, catchy-tuned creative is running as radio spots, a YouTube video, bus cards and billboards, and now they are targeting Washington state visitors to the New York Times online edition.

The art work is reminiscient of an old apple crate label and I accidently let the YouTube video play long enough that damn tune is once again stuck in my head.

Have I not suffered enough? I half-jokingly included the Washyourhandsington campaign in the disfavorable section of my recent post titled “Five Advertising Campaigns I Love and Five I Hate“.

Now why would they be advertising in the New York Times? Maybe they are targeting young kids and other soccer nuts from Washington state whose behavior they might actually change. Now that would be smart.

O.K. I admit it. This campaign is starting to grow on me.

Thanks for reading,

Kevin Bush, Principal & CEO
Rainier Sky Marketing & Public Relations

Tweet