Archipelago, Chicago, a fully electronic stock trading system, is reporting a 337 percent increase in traffic to its Web site, www.tradearca.com, since the mid-June launch of its first mainstream print and television advertising campaign.
Weekly impressions for the site jumped from 12,000 before the campaign launched to 52,520 one week after its debut.
The Archipelago advertisements, which will run until early August, are featured in The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Investor's Business Daily, The Financial Times, CNNfn, CNBC and Bloomberg News.
Archipelago is targeting broker-dealers, investment management firms, investment banking institutions and traders. “Traders read these publications on a daily basis and have their televisions tuned in to these programs at work every day,” said Sidnie Campschroeder, a marketing official at Archipelago.
Archipelago is a 2-year-old front-office electronic trading system for financial institutions.
The firm's selling point, which the advertisements emphasize, is the ability to execute any stock trade in the market that offers the best price.
“We display all buy and sell prices within Archipelago to our clients, so that they can get a better idea about the trend of the market,” Campschroeder added.
Archipelago's print campaign consists of comical advertisements with the tag line, “What if there was a land with no secrets?” followed by the company's Web address. One print ad features a fake advertisement for Dreamy Snacks, a snack cake, with the message on top, “Just like mom would make if she were a chemical engineer.”
The television ads are produced with the same message. One television ad features a young professional on an interview admitting that he lied on his resume and confessing that he played video games and visited pornography sites at his previous job.
“We wanted to catch the public's interest with shocking and funny ads to create brand awareness for Archipelago,” Campschroeder said. The campaign aims to emphasize Archipelago's open trading philosophy.
In addition, the ads are designed to drive consumers to the Archipelago site. The campaign was created by Fallon Worldwide, Minneapolis, the firm responsible for comical ads such as the “Buddy Lee” advertisements for Lee Jeans and the recent Holiday Inn ads featuring a thirty-something slacker still living with his parents.
“We selected Fallon because we wanted something funny and out of the box that would attract attention,” Campschroeder said.
Archipelago plans to launch online banner advertisements and streaming media ads with Fallon's help in September.
The firm will place its ads on financial business-to-business community and news sites, Campschroeder said, adding that it is too early to discuss details about the online ad plans. She would not disclose revenue or sales goals for the current or planned campaigns.
Before the June launch of the mainstream advertising, Archipelago ran limited advertising campaigns in trade publications, including Traders Magazine, Wall Street & Technology and Institutional Investor. Those ads are still running. These campaigns, which were developed by the company's internal marketing department, display the brand name and Web address to establish initial brand awareness.
