Last night, people watching the ad break between the ITV News and Emmerdale in the London, Meridian and Granada ITV region will have seen the Sambucol (an immunity booster used to combat the common cold and part of the Pharmacare product range) TV ad.
Why? - because VCCP Media knew they needed a boost to their immune system more than any other regions in the UK right now.
The reason they know this is because since October of last year, VCCP Media @VCCPMedia have been monitoring the volume of Google keyword searches by ITV region for things like “cold remedy”, and for the past few days these regions have seen daily searches rise considerably above the average.
The strategy for Sambucol is to up-weight ITV regions in real-time based on volume of cold/flu related keyword searches. The insight being that although people suffering from the common cold is seasonal (i.e. more colds in winter), cold/flu outbreaks fluctuate over time and region meaning that just laying down 100% of your TV spend across the UK and praying for an outbreak is not the most efficient use of budget.
To maximise the TV plan, VCCP Media have allocated a pot of money to be used to make the most of these outbreaks and because their TV team can get the ads away in a matter of days in large ITV spots, they are able to react to outbreaks very quickly in order to drive Sambucol ROI.
Tom Bailey, Group Account Director at VCCP Media said:99 “I think this may well be a media first, so we’re really proud of the work done by everyone in getting this live. With a two-day turnaround and on three large spots across three large ITV regions – this is a huge feat for the team”.
