Today I visited Avanir Pharmaceuticals with Garret Akerson. Garret works at the digital agency, Motionstrand, and is teaching my BUS 150 class while I am on sabbatical.  We met with Avanir to discuss the campaign for the drug Nuedexta.  The meeting was to review analytics for the web site PBAfacts.com.

Here are some takeaways that will help me create new curriculum and teach my courses better:

1)  Once again – analytics is king!  Much of the creativity in advertising is being augmented and/or replaced with web analytics.  Garret showed several Google Ad Groups that he created all with slightly different text/copy (only 1- 2 lines of copy).  And that copy was based on key word searches.  It was easy  (and cheap) to test different text ads quickly and the analytics clearly showed which ones were most effective.

2)  Mobile is king!  Even though the target for this drug was older people, it was still interesting to see the number of people accessing the web site from their smartphone or tablet.  The client discussed the importance of having a mobile site that would quickly get people to want to “opt in” in order to have more information sent.

3)  Re-marketing — one of my new favorite terms – came up again.  This is the idea of “following” your lead around on the web with continued ads about your product or service after they visit your site.  I think this is an interesting term that I will introduce students to in both BUS 155 and BUS 150.

4)  New activity ideas — I got a a great idea for an assignment.  Having students take a REGULAR ad and then create a Google PPC ad from it — perhaps various versions based on key search terms.  I think this will mimic very well what Garret Akerson was illustrating to his client.

I think this was my LAST interview/work day for my sabbatical.  I believe I was supposed to interview 5-6 people, but I’ve interviewed about 10 — all is good.