2017’s John Lewis advert

Each year, news of the John Lewis ad being aired on television sets offices across the country alight in conversation.  Ours is no different – from heated debates in person and on Twitter, to emailing a friend or client to see what they thought, this year’s ad was most definitely the epitome of viral.

This year for SEO lovers, there was the added treat of the main character (Moz – cute fluffy monster guy) sharing its name with one of our best loved SEO tools.

 

What is ‘Moz the SEO software’?

Moz co-founder Rand Fishkin gives a brief overview of the company’s history on his blog:

“If you’re not familiar with Moz, we used to be called SEOmoz. The project started as my personal blog about SEO in 2004. It evolved first into a consultancy and then, in 2007, a software company. We’ve raised three rounds of funding: $1.1mm in 2007, $18mm in 2012, and another $10mm in January of 2016. During that stretch, we’ve grown to ~$40mm revenue run rate, mid-market size for a SaaS business.”

Today, Moz’s homepage displays the tagline ‘5 billion searches are performed every day.  Be found.’  Which is precisely what Moz’s tools help businesses to achieve: from keyword and link research to local listings and website audits.

 

Will John Lewis’ campaign rank higher for ‘Moz’?

I digress – this isn’t actually my point – it’s just what got me thinking.  Could Moz – fount of all SEO knowledge and website of the SEO Gods – be usurped by the cute fluffy character created by John Lewis’ marketing department, in terms of Google rankings?

Surely not… besides, the name has to be purely coincidental and basically just short for monster, right?

However, according to Serplab results, John Lewis is currently ranking close behind Moz.com in searches for ‘Moz’. So close, it’s actually second.

 

How John Lewis’ television advert has improved its SEO

If this is the result of the name of a fluffy monster, then how well is John Lewis ranking for the main product featured in the ad? Pretty well it seems – the word ‘night light’ is currently at fourth position on Google.

If you take a look at John Lewis’ website, you’ll see from its homepage that this is far from coincidence. The homepage is highly optimised.

Then, just think of how many people have seen the ad and how many mum’s will now be searching for night lights as Christmas presents to help their children sleep.

High numbers of searches for a product that people want to find in relation to a specific website like John Lewis = SEO success. A well optimised website alongside high numbers of searches = fast SEO success.  Of course, it also really helps if you have a reported £7m budget for making the television advert that sparks off the campaign.

 

Monstrous multichannel marketing

Well done John Lewis. Your monster naming skills made me see what a fantastic multichannel campaign you’ve run and a tiny part of me is left wondering whether the name Moz was a coincidence after all.

 

Advice about modern multichannel marketing and SEO

For more information about how SEO can be vital to the success of a modern multichannel campaign and for advice on how best to develop an SEO strategy for your business, feel free to get in touch.  Call 01858 374 170 or email me directly at hannah@idealmarketingcompany.com

To view the advert (if you’ve somehow managed to avoid it so far) visit the John Lewis website.  Of course, it is on the homepage: https://www.johnlewis.com/

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