We credit an improv class at from Upright Citizens Brigade for a new perspective on search marketing. It’s inspiring enough to share.

Yes… and

The first lesson in improv is to always “Yes…and” everything. Your improve partner tells you your name is Ichabod? “Yes, and… I’m the sixth in a long line of Ichabods.” She sets the story in ancient Rome? “Yes, and… everyone’s hygiene here could use a little work.” The premise behind the rule is that a story can’t go on unless open minds allow it to go on. If someone comes up with a brand new idea, and all you say is, “No,” there’s nowhere to go from there. If the response to a new idea is, “Yes…and tell me more,” the story evolves.

Search is a constantly evolving field, so if you’re not open to new ideas, you’ll fall behind. Search marketers learn through constant testing how a single additional word in ad copy can lead to a significant improvement in results. Keeping an open mind about new searching habits is rewarding because we can always test to see if a different approach works better than the original. The key is not to disregard something as a failure right off the bat, because you never know how the story is going to develop.

Add new elements

In improv, everyone starts off with zero information and builds from what other people say. Saying “Yes…” establishes that what was said in the past is part of a story. The function of “and” is to make sure each statement adds new information to the scene.

Your search accounts are a treasure trove of data. You might as well just draw a giant X on your computer screen because that’s the place to start digging for the first fact in a story. If impressions rose after you launched a set of keywords, “Yes… and” why? What else happened? The story could go anywhere from that point. The way to make something happen next is to add new information by extrapolating from your data set or running more tests to establish more facts.

Truth in Comedy and Search

As Del Close and Charna Halpern stressed in their book Truth in Comedy, nothing is more impactful than the truth. For improv, the truth is where we find humor. When was the last time you were on the floor with tears streaming down your face while clutching your stomach in a fit of laughter? Was it because you were watching a comedian on TV? Or was it that the situation you were in was extraordinarily hilarious? Because comedy comes from everyday life, the funniest improv always mimics ordinary circumstances.

In search, the truth is where we enhance results. Search is the only medium where people are trying to tell us what they want. SEM experts are closer to a true connection with consumers than everyone else in marketing. The way to be true to customers is to provide a satisfying experience. No gimmicks. No tricks. Just relevance and service. As improv stories earn the gift of laughter, search connections are rewarded with happy customers and exceptional results.

There isn’t a lot of variability when it comes to text ads. A search for mortgages leads you to ads that repeat the word ‘mortgage’ several times with perhaps a couple of rates thrown in. Most other keywords produce similar outcomes.

It’s rare that a simple text ad stands out among the crowd. And if it does, one is usually witnessing the work of an inexperienced search marketer (see our Playing with Matches column). So when there is a search campaign that thinks beyond normal constraints, it certainly needs to be called out. Tide’s search ads for its Loads of Hope movement break the traditional “rules” of search and build a brand in a channel typically seen as a simple direct response medium.

Though the ad in the screenshot broad matches into a less relevant query, there’s no denying that the ad has a couple of things going for it. At first you might wonder why Tide is showing up for Nashville, but in this case it only adds to the intrigue. Additionally, the landing page leads, not to the Tide homepage, but to a Twitter page where Tide can continue to have a conversation with those already interested after having clicked on the ad. Lastly, the Twitter page highlights Tide’s generosity with free laundry tweets for Tennessee flood victims rather than selfishly demanding something from its visitors. I don’t know how Tide is measuring success from this campaign, but from our point of view, it’s already successful.

Snaps for Tide.