Not that long ago I posted about Mobil (the petrol stations) and their latest promotion on the back of the Rugby World Cup. I am talking about their All Black miniature figurines and more specifically the famous falling over Dan Carter version.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Mobil got themselves into a bit of grief by letting the news that their latest promotional products were faulty get out off hand.
My suggestion was that Mobil would have done well to have a more web 2.0 orientated strategy supporting their promotion, allowing kids to communicate easily with Mobil online. This way Mobil would have quickly realised that they had a problem. They would have been on the front foot rather than the media being in this position.
Unfortunately for Mobil, it seems that they are also suffering from poor Search Marketing Strategy (SEM). Actually, to be entirely specific, they obviously have no search marketing strategy. How do I know this? Look what happens when one conducts a Google search for Mobil All Black Miniatures!
Thats right folks, my post abusing the quality of their promotional products actually outranks the Mobil site itself. This is the worst case scenario when you decide to not consider Search Engine Marketing as part of your major promotion.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have seen corporates make such a mistake. I remember a few years back when ISP Woosh launched their new service. A Google search for Woosh at that point in time yielded a string of results from various geek forums who were less than happy about the quality of the new Wireless internet provider.
The lesson to be taken from these examples is simple. If you are going to run any sort of nationwide promotion where significant investments are made in mass media such as TV, for Christs sake make sure that you have your bases covered in the various search engines. The more people you tell about your product or service, the more likely there will be search traffic around your brand or that specific product or service.
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