By Suvarna Sheth, BioSpace.com
A new and exciting feature to the BioSpace Hotbed Campaigns is coming to a city near you beginning this fall. Four of the largest BioSpace Hotbeds, Pharm Country, Genetown, Biotech Bay and Biotech Beach will, for the first time ever, be featured across huge billboards, called “Spectaculars,” at international airports and on public transportation in major cities.
The large, 13X20 Spectaculars will go up during key industry events and be seen by millions of people attending those events, whether they are flying in to the city’s airport or hoping onto a convention-center-bound bus. This gives an added value to companies that participate in the Hotbed campaigns, and will help build their corporate brand and increase their reputation as elite companies in the region.
“We wanted to do something big,” says Joe Kroog, product director for BioSpace, “and going big was to literally get our maps in front of the greatest number of eyes,” he says. But the Spectaculars are not just about doing a billboard that runs for a month like a lottery billboard, “we wanted to do something that was specific to our life-science audience but still created enough carry-over that other people get an idea of what’s happening in the biopharmaceutical arena,” he explains.
Kroog says the BioSpace team looked at multiple marketing channels, evaluated billboard advertising, electronic bill-board advertising, and various other options in airports and other transportation venues in order to create the most exposure for the least amount of investment.
When will the Spectaculars launch?
Pharm Country will be the first Hotbed to get a spectacular campaign, slated during the Biotech 2011 event in Pennsylvania, taking place on October 24-25th. Since the event will take place at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Spectaculars will be placed bus routes that run right in front of the convention center.
The maps will feature a new global design also. The actual map will be in the middle, and companies will have the ability to purchase spots on the sides to show case their logos. “Not only are they showcasing their icon and an artist’s rendition of their building, they also get to get their logo out there,” says Nikki Walters, marketing and events coordinator for BioSpace.
How will it benefit you?
One of the best benefits an employer can get from being on the Hotbed map is the exposure and representation. The greatest thing Hotbeds help to achieve is brand awareness. According to Walters, the Spectaculars will serve yet another avenue for people to brand their company, and get their name out there.
“What these maps really achieve is showcasing the companies as elite companies in the region and in the industry,” Walters says, “The companies that are consistently on the map are the leaders in the industry – there’s no doubt about that.”
As for the smaller companies, Walters says it’s a nice way to get their name out there if they are building their brand. “Our audience is just so broad and with advertising, it extends that audience so it’s not just our online readership for newsletters and jobs, it’s a whole other audience that it reaches,” she notes.
The Spectaculars are what Kroog considers a targeted awareness campaign. “When companies are represented on maps like this, and they’re going to get in front of 3 million eye-balls through the airport, or a million people on the street seeing that billboard splattered on the side of a major downtown bus during a convention – our industry resonates with that,” he says.
Kroog and Walters agree that the maps will literally drive people to that Hotbed landing page, to company profiles, jobs and news that’s specific to that company. “From a quantifiable standpoint, we hope to double the amount of traffic that’s going to company profiles, jobs and news and even clicking on to the company’s website,” he adds.
According to Kroog, when this sort of advertising campaign can double the amount of traffic to a particular site, spending an additional $2000 for the elite sponsorship is well-worth the investment.
One of the great things about the Hotbeds, says Kroog, is it’s not about slapping a logo up on a webpage, “it is about the integration of news, jobs, and events that are all relevant only to that geographic location and the integration of all that information in a hotbed means that company is a meaningful part of the biopharma community.”
Because it’s the first time BioSpace Hotbed maps will be represented in a major way, Kroog is anticipating the endeavor to be “wildly” successful.
And because there has been turmoil in the industry, things are ever-changing and employees are jumping ship from one company to the next, he says people want to associate themselves with a community and BioSpace has always been that community.
“A lot of what emerges out of the Hotbed regions is always what’s been at the core essence of what BioSpace is about,” Kroog says. “We care about our industry, our clients, customers, community and we want that message to come across in taking these maps to the next level.”