PJs.

Posted by: Cali on: September 29, 2008

• In: bad ads
• 1 Comment

Time to discuss another comercial that annoys me…

ClassInMyPJs.com has a spot that runs constantly on every morning on most of the MTV channels. While these media buyers got it right in traditional media, they are incredibly lacking with their online integration and the creative is insanely annoying.

The spot features a girl walking around the screen talking about how great it is to go to class in her pjs. Apparently she never went to high school or college, where people go into brick and mortar class rooms in their pjs.

If you’re trying to appeal to someone attempting to get a degree online, their motivation is most likely ease of use and time. Most of those seeking online degrees work full time or have other obligations (like a family), they don’t go to school online to stay at home all day. I highly doubt their target is so easily swayed or so lazy to pick their school based on which ones they can do in their “pink, fluffy slippers.” 

After seeing the spot multiple times every morning for a couple of weeks I jumped online to find it so I could rant about it here. I couldn’t quite remember the school or site the girl was pushing so I typed in a couple of variations on what she emphasized- class in my pjs, online school directory, college in my pjs, pj college. I exhausted every term and phrase I remembered from the spot but had no luck locating the site. 

I actually had to wait until the spot ran again so I could jot down the name of site – classinpjs.com – which redirected me to educationconnection.com after going just one page deep. Ugh, that kind of sloppy inconsistency is why so many companies fail to find success in their advertising. 

One of the first rules of online is to integrate key phrases from your ads into your PPC and SEO. Now for most companies I can excuse this oversight, however, this is an online directory of online schools. And while I don’t often spend much on PPC for your own company name, when the URL you’re directing people to is a phrase not a traditional company name, you definitely should buy that term and every variation you can think up!

If anyone from the company is reading this here is what you need to do:

– rethink your messaging and creative direction

– get a better website name

– buy up the search terms for phrases you repeat in your spot

– put a money towards your own URL

– optimize your site for your spot keywords

– as you have a highly competitive industry, find your niche and invest heavily in that for PPC

– or you can just hire my agency 🙂

Tags: education, integration, online