Bullseye Strategy Special Correspondent
People eat when they’re bored, and there’s nothing more booooooring than a traffic jam, right? This might sound obvious to most people, but to Burger King, it sounds like the ka-ching ka-ching ka-ching of a cash register in overdrive. In other exciting digital marketing news, we’re drooling over YouTube’s new Bumper Machine, which works kind of like a vending machine. You put money and a longish video in, and out comes a 6-second bumper ad. Switching gears to a much less appetizing topic we’re buzzing about: BUGS. Google Ads reporting still has them.
Traffic-Snarled Commuters Gobble Up Whoppers
Hungry people stuck in traffic represent a $230 billion opportunity for brands. Burger King decided to be the first quick-service restaurant to take a bite out of this pie by advertising burger delivery to nonmoving vehicles in Mexico City rush hour via its “Traffic Jam Whopper” app. Orders from these hungry and bored motorists alone resulted in a 63% increase in Whopper sales during the first week of the campaign’s launch. The service, advertised heavily on both Waze and billboards, will soon be extended to Los Angeles, Shanghai, and São Paulo…and possibly gridlock near you.
YouTube’s New Bumper Machine + Other Video News
With 97% of businesses acknowledging that video is an important tool in their marketing arsenal, it’s not surprising that the demand for an easier way to create video ads is at an all-time high. We will admit that, as advertisers, we’ve sometimes daydreamed that obtaining compelling video ads would be as easy as buying a bag of pretzels from a vending machine. YouTube has come pretty close to fulfilling that fantasy with their new Bumper Machine, which turns longer-form videos into 6-second bumper ads. In other video-related news, Social Media Today is predicting 7 video trends that will dominate in 2019, some of the most interesting of which include live Q&A, 360-degree videos and VR-ready videos.
Bug Infestation Still Plaguing Google Ads
If you’re a digital advertiser, it’s almost as bad as dealing with a real insect infestation–the bugs Google Ads announced May 1 and 2 are still crawling around, messing up reporting for us all. While Google has made much progress towards fixing the problem, reach data, particularly regarding in-store visits, store purchase conversion and local action conversions may be incorrect for this time period.
“Mark Eting” is the pen name of the Bullseye Strategy team. Check back with us next week for more news on what’s buzzing in the digital marketing industry.
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