From the early days of local newspapers to cinema ads and OOH, localisation has significantly enhanced the impact of advertising campaigns. Get it right and you’re highlighting how your brand is a key part of the community.

For example, in 2023, Scottish beer brand Tennent’s debuted a new ad with a widely used local slang, “Oooft” as the hook.

However, if you get it wrong, as Magnum did in Manchester, you can attract ridicule. The ice-cream brand took out a prominent billboard in the city’s Piccadilly Gardens with the strapline “The only thing that can make lying in Piccadilly Gardens even better”.

The backlash was instant – Piccadilly Gardens wasn’t somewhere you’d consider spending time eating ice-cream, and if you did, it certainly wouldn’t be on the ground! There was so much amusement surrounding the attempt, that the locally headquartered holiday company On The Beach even took out further ads to mock the global brand!

Ok, so as these examples prove, the first thing you have to get right with localisation is the creative. Any attempt by a national or international brand must understand the cultural differences between various markets.

The evolution of localisation

Now you’re sure on your creative messaging, let’s look at how to get your campaign out there.  As the digital era dawned, localisation found a new playground beyond regional TV, radio, print and OOH. Online advertising, with its sophisticated geo-targeting capabilities, offered unprecedented precision in reaching local audiences. This shift not only broadened the scope of localisation but also enhanced its effectiveness.

The advent of connected TV and online audio has more recently further expanded the horizons of localisation. These platforms offer unique opportunities for brands to engage with audiences in a deeply personal and localised manner. They’ve also brought with them a lower cost of entry and improved targeting as advertisers can leverage detailed audience data to deliver highly targeted, localised ads that speak directly to the viewer’s interests and location.

Online targeting

Effective localisation hinges on mastering geo-targeting and audience segmentation. The key is to utilise data to identify the target demographic and tailor the strategy accordingly, ensuring campaigns reach the most receptive audiences.

A good example of successful localisation in action is our work for Hollywood Bowl. Smart use of data helped us reach families effectively across our media mix at the right time, with the right message, and at the optimal level of frequency.

How to minimise wastage

By focusing on specific geographic areas, employing a smart data strategy, and tailoring content to local audiences, localisation also significantly reduces the likelihood of media wastage. This targeted approach ensures that ads are only seen by those most likely to be interested, thereby maximising the return on investment (ROI).

FAQs

Q: What is media localisation?

A: Media localisation involves adapting advertising content to fit the cultural, linguistic, and regional specifics of a target audience, ensuring maximum relevance and engagement.

Q: How does geo-targeting work?

A: Geo-targeting uses GPS technology and IP addresses to deliver content and advertisements to users based on their geographic location.

Q: What are the benefits of localised advertising?

A: Localised advertising offers numerous benefits, including increased engagement, higher conversion rates, and reduced media wastage, by ensuring ads are directly relevant to the target audience.

Last night we won Gold at the DMA Awards for our work on the launch of Hospitality Rising. Whilst this was a predominantly brand-led campaign, paid search played a vital role in making sure job-seekers found their way to site – converting the trust and awareness built up through other media into consideration and applications.

Whilst bidding on Hospitality Rising brand terms was a necessary strategy, particularly for a new site with limited visibility, the question is often asked when this strategy is proposed: should advertisers bid on their own brand name in search, or is it an unnecessary expense for attracting already interested customers?

We’ve outlined the biggest reasons we believe brand search adds real value to your business, even when organic search performance is strong.

Beating the competition

The most important reason for running brand search is to defend against your competitors. If rivals are bidding on your brand terms and you aren’t, then they can guarantee the top spot on searches for your brand. This is particularly important in industries where brand loyalty doesn’t play such a big role and consumers can easily be swayed by a competitor’s ad.

Bidding on your own brand terms is generally a lot cheaper for you than your competitors (due to better ad relevance and CTRs which improve quality score and reduce CPCs), so it’s much easier to ensure you end up in the first position. It also deters competitors from bidding on your terms as having more advertisers in the auction inflates CPCs, increasing the cost.

Boosting presence and improving CTRs

Running brand search increases presence in the search listings for your brand terms and improves the chances of users clicking through to your site. There are continuous changes to the layout of Google’s search listings and some of these can negatively impact CTRs – e.g. Google Maps listings are taking more priority and can often hide web listings. Bidding on brand terms can ensure you appear at the top of the page, regardless of the other listings present.

There’s also a lot of data to back up the claim that running brand search improves overall CTR, as our case study shows. We turned on brand paid search for a leisure brand even though they had strong organic listings with little competition and we saw a significant increase in the combined CTR of paid and organic listings.

Our chart compares periods with and without paid search running and shows a clear uplift in the percentage of people clicking through to the website.

Taking into account the low cost of bidding on brand terms, particularly when there is little competition, you almost can’t afford not to run brand ads. Even a small uplift in traffic to site can prove to be cost-effective.

Tailoring the messaging

Another benefit of brand search is the flexibility it gives you to tailor the messaging in ad copy. It can often be hard to control how organic listings appear or require help from your web dev team to change them.

Paid search allows you to quickly swap messaging in an out (e.g. if there’s an offer running) and allows you to control exactly where on the site users end up, providing the opportunity to send potential customers further down the purchase funnel if desired. Additionally, you can add in sitelink extensions to direct users to other important parts of the site.

In short…

Whilst bidding on your brand name in search advertising is more important for some brands than others, we believe there are valid reasons for everyone to do it and we have the data to back it up.

FAQs

1. Is it necessary for brands to bid on their own name?

It’s not 100% essential for all brands, but it can be a strategic move, especially in competitive industries. For lesser-known brands, it certainly helps in gaining visibility online. For established brands, it’s more about controlling the narrative and where people are clicking to on your site, all while keeping your competitors at bay.

2. Does bidding on your own brand name impact SEO?

Bidding on your own brand name won’t directly impact organic SEO rankings. However, it certainly complements SEO efforts by ensuring that your brand dominates the search results page, both organically and through paid ads.

3. What are the risks of not bidding on your brand name?

The key risk is losing potential traffic to competitors who might bid on your brand name. You’re also missing out on controlling the first impression made through search results, which can be crucial for brand image and customer perception.

4. How should brands measure the success of bidding on their own name?

Success can be measured through various metrics such as click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and return on ad spend (ROAS) – in particular, looking at this in conjunction with organic performance as, ultimately, there will be some degree of cannibalisation of organic listings so it’s important to measure the impact on the performance of search as a whole. Additionally, monitoring changes in brand awareness and direct website traffic can also provide insights.