Breathe.com's DHTML Floating Fish Get 12% Click-Though vs. Fish Banners at 1%

We had quite a response to Case Study about Breathe.com’s Blow-Up Doll last week – many of you were surprised by the results that we reported for the banner ads involved. In addition, we had a couple of requests for information about Breathe.com’s earlier floating fish campaign and, as always, we’re happy to oblige...

The floating fish, launched in May, were the first online part of Breathe.com’s campaign designed to create an instantly recognisable brand amongst ‘modern urbanists’. It was the combined brainchild of Outrider and Incline Media (who came up with the rather off-the-wall creative).

Creative notes: You may have seen the fish in their original guise – on billboard posters and in the Underground. They breathed not water but air (with the aid of an aqualung, of course) because, as we’ve said before, ‘It’s amazing what happens when you breathe’. Their online counterparts, appearing as both GIF banners and as DHTML files that ‘swam’ around the browser window at the Web sites of such publications as Loaded, Maxim and FHM (yep – the target was 18-35 year old men again) breathed similarly. No microsite was involved in this campaign – clicking on either the banner or the fish took inquisitive users directly to the Breathe.com site.

Results: No surprises when it comes to the standard GIF banner – a clickthrough rate of one percent was achieved. The DHTML floating fish, on the other hand, were clicked at a rate of 12%. Not bad, huh? And Breathe.com were more than satisfied with the conversion rate...

Cost: Breathe.com’s initial brand-building campaign cost £8 million. They spend around 10% of their advertising budget online.