Washington Capitals

AOL boosts ticket sales for Washington Capitals with targeting and custom creative

AOL Advertising's unparalleled reach and retargeting solutions effectively sliced through DC area sports marketing competition and reinforced the Washington Capitals' message, boosting ticket sales and bringing the Caps' brand back to the forefront of professional sports.

Challenge

With five pro-sports teams in the DC area, the Washington Capitals needed something more than a winning season to stand out from the crowd. They needed to outshine the the Redskins, Wizards, Nationals and DC United in the minds of the ticket-buying public.

They came to AOL Advertising for help increasing brand awareness, attracting new fans and bringing old ones back to the Verizon Center.

Solution

AOL Advertising combined massive reach with targeting solutions to spread the Caps' brand message.

Geographic targeting honed in on the Caps' local audience and Washington DC-area sports fans without limiting reach across the internet.

Advertiser LeadBack targeted current and prospective fans that had already clicked on a Caps ad or had been to the Caps website in the last 30 days.

In addition, our in-house creative team designed a set of ads to run concurrently with those the Caps supplied.

Results

AOL Advertising successfully increased brand awareness and boosted ticket sales, reaching 256K unique visitors daily and delivering over 19M impressions on 500+ websites.

To engage the Caps' target audience and build awareness for the team, our in-house designers built an interactive hockey game and a scrolling ticker that displayed upcoming games and events.

The rich media banners designed in-house gave the Caps' messaging a huge boost as evidenced by the incredible lift in click-through rates.