Ad Club Blog

Van Wagner Communications is ranked by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (“OAAA”) as the largest privately held out-of-home media company in the country; and the fourth largest overall.

With more than 40 years of out-of-home media experience, Van Wagner is an entrepreneurial company with a broad range of business lines, known for its creativity and boldness, as well as the high quality of its displays.

After entering the Bus Wrap business in 2010, Van Wagner now sells an inventory of more than 50 vehicles through franchises in Boston, Washington D.C., San Francisco and Las Vegas. These oversized, spectacular displays travel highly desired routes through city centers and neighborhoods with limited advertising alternatives.

In addition to their Bus Wrap group, Van Wagner operates roughly 5,700 advertising displays in major urban centers across the U.S., as well as the largest aerial media business in the world, a leading sports and entertainment group, an experiential marketing group. In 2011, Van Wagner was awarded the exclusive rights by the City of Boston to sell advertising on the New Balance Hubway bike share program.

Van Wagner is very proud to become a Trustee Member of The Ad Club, and is looking forward to fully participating and engaging in all opportunities. 

For further information on Van Wagner, please contact Robert Crawford at rcrawford@vanwagner.com.

Are you a student interested in interning at the world’s premier experience marketing agency? Think you’ve got the game to kick the competition? GPJ and The Ad Club want to see it! GPJ will be announcing the Student Brand Experience Competition Thursday March 1st. 

This is your chance show your stuff while working with your team to promote an international brand! The winning team of up to 3 students will each receive a paid internship, as well as a cash prize!

The "kicker" is that we can’t say who the international brand is...YET. Follow us @TheAdClub using #IveGotGame for more details!

The New Currency: Attendees and Analytics

February 16, 2012
By: Kristin Andreotes

On February 6^th, the marketing power players of financial services discussed how to reach and regain trust of the new “iWant-It-All” customer that is changing the banking landscape forever. The below recaps the attendee demographics and psychographics as well as analytics from the microsite.

232 professionals were in attendances, with 34% coming from finance-focused companies, including 12% from investment firms, 9% from banks, 8% from insurance companies, and 5% from financial services companies. Agencies accounted for 30% of the audience, Digital Companies represented 18%, and Media Firms were 11%.

Geographically, 84% of attendees were from Massachusetts – with 56% from Metro Boston and 28% from Outside of Boston. New Yorkers also had a presence with 14%.

Attendees were most commonly Directors (23%) and VPs (20%) of their respective companies, most commonly coming from the Marketing department (27%) or Senior Management (21%).

Throughout the day, there were 196 tweets sent out using the event hashtag #AdClubFinance. The keywords most commonly seen throughout the conversation were “financial,” “new,” “currency,” and “consumer.” Names and companies of speakers were also used throughout the dialogue.

The website, from January 1^st to February 9^th had 1,690 visits, 1,015 unique visitors, and 3,425 page views. Marketing efforts, such as email blasts and newsletters, accounted for almost half of the site traffic. Direct traffic represented 40%, and Search Engines and Social Media accounted for the remaining 11%. Site visits spiked drastically when marketing and social media were utilized.

Our typical events pull in an audience dominated by agency and media professionals. This event, however, pulled in a drastically different demographic with high-level financial executives not only speaking, but attending as well. And while the website didn’t see as much traffic as our usual microsites, the attendance was higher than originally projected, meaning these professionals learned about and registered for this event through a means other than the microsite.

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The NON-Event: Attendees and Analytics

February 13, 2012
By Kristin Andreotes

The Ad Club’s first-event NON-Event brought over 140 people to Microsoft’s New England Research and Development center. The breathtaking venue, incredible presenters, and award-winning creative work truly made the night a huge success, but the analytics and attendee data also show the success in bringing buzz for a new event, and within a newer audience.

Typically, we see the majority of attendees coming from agencies and media companies, but the audience was unique for this event. 43% of professionals in attendance came from agencies, while 36% represented various non-profits, including arts & entertainment focused organizations (14%), youth organizations (11%), and healthcare organizations (8%). Media companies represented 13% of attendees and professional services companies (i.e., printers, law firms, staffing, etc.) represented 8%.

Geographically, over half of the audience came from companies in Boston, with 37% coming from Boston Proper and 16% coming from Greater Boston (including Allston/Brighton, Somerville, and Cambridge). 19% of companies were from West of Boston (i.e., Newton, Waltham, etc.), 12% were from South of Boston (i.e., Dedham, Dorchester, etc.), 10% from the North (Andover and Lawrence), and 6% from outside Massachusetts (including RI, NJ, FL, OH, and VA).

Throughout the day, Twitter was abuzz with tweets and retweets about the event. The key participants were @TheAdClub, @rifoodbank, @nailprovidence, @allengerritsen and @guttmacher. Keywords heard throughout the conversation were “congrats,” “best,” and “partner.”

From a digital perspective, we also looked at the website analytics. From November 1^st to January 31^st we received 3,419 visits and 1,929 unique visitors to the NON-Event microsite. Site traffic typically came in directly, by marketing efforts, including email blasts, accounted for 38% of traffic to the site, and social media brought in 13%. Visits were also highly influenced by email blasts and newsletter postings, as seen through the spikes in traffic on particular dates.

The goal of this event was to truly highlight the incredible non-profit creative work and partnerships. Based on the high number of non-profits at the event (36% versus a typical 5% of attendees at other Ad Club events), and the large spikes in views throughout our marketing efforts (including email blasts, Boston Globe advertisements, email blasts through non-profit organizations, and newsletter inclusion), the event caused buzz amongst this new audience.