Search has historically been viewed as a direct response channel, but it should be considered as the integration point between all medias, on and offline. People go to search box for information about stuff they’re interested in, which creates a unique opportunity for marketers to engage in a search dialogue with the user.
Moderator Peter Hershberg began the session with a question: How has the role of search changed in marketing?
David Karnstedt of Yahoo! Search Marketing replied, A lot of best practices today integrate campaigns between different types of media. Yahoo! is trying to get smarter in how search is integrated into overall marketing strategy, to better serve their variety of clients.
Steve Kaufman from Digitas, agreed with David’s remark and followed up with comments about the importance of connecting TV ads to optimized pages. Ad-specific microsites provide people with the information they’re looking for about promotions they see offline. Bob Hyeman of Mediasmith analyzed search as a basketball game, in the sense that search can help people “tip the ball in the basket” when searchers aren’t exactly sure about what they’re looking for. This is an important thing for branding, because search can subtly reinforce brands by presenting them as relevant to a search query.
Curt Hecht from GM Planworks said that he’s interested in how his clients are increasingly embracing search. For example: His company timed the Oprah/Pontiac show to correlate with launch of Pontiac’s search campaign. Paid search was used to promote a microsite set up to provide more information about the episode. This is one example of how they’ve done “drafting” – buying against ad campaign terms – which speaks to a search-oriented mindset, aka, “how do we include search in the creative campaign?”
Peter mentioned the Reprise Media search marketing Score Card that looks at how superbowl advertisers integrate search into their ad campaigns.
David referenced a case study that used search to stimulate a viral campaign – showing that beyond branding, search is being used as medium to educate consumers. Curt noted that this speaks to information-rich categories (ie: automotive). Peter commented that while search provides an opportunity to engage users who aren’t necessarily looking for your product, it can at the same time have an adverse effect if users aren’t responding correctly to the ads. This is especially pertinent to campaigns in paid search that are for generic terms related to an overall campaign. Paid campaigns might not be relevant 6 months after broadcast ads are done, for example, and might be wasted money.
So, peter asked, Is this truly “branding”?
David responded, “A lot of it has to do with understanding user behavior.” People trust search results, and so if your brand appears in SERPS, its positive branding. For example, he noted that in product recalls, people use search to gather critical information. When you take that critical information and apply it to your brand message, you can gain back some user trust. Steven remarked, “its more about brand engagement – something at Digitas that we call ‘active branding’ – which is buying keywords that push your brand out there to people who didn’t think they were looking for it.” Curt referenced Oprah again, saying that Pontiac looked at the user’s search experience – Where can people go? Positive sites? Negative sites? How should they use their individual dealers involved in boosting organic search rankings of main site (Pontiac.com)? How can they take advantage of local markets to support brand message?
Steven made the point that just provoking people to talk about the brands is a point of engagement, and has value with or without clicks. David continued by discussing how marketers want to control the full user experience when they type in brand names. To which Peter asked, “Are there ways that new ad channels are being integrated into search marketing campaigns?”
David said that Yahoo! is looking at relationships between differnet ad formats to better understand the nuances between their varieties. Bob said that Mediasmith preferred contextual ads, but hasn’t has much experience with video. Curt commented that video for automotive is a great way to share their assets (commercials). “It becomes a matter of thinking of Google and Yahoo! as ABC or NBC” and that new metrics are emerging to show the larger opportunity of integrated media. David beleives that marketers should take advantage of different search services to push their brands. He referenced Yahoo!’s search spolight award, where they were trying to “work and think creatively” with the users. This is the future, he said, and we own that together. David’s comments lead Peter to another question: ”We’re starting to push the boundaries of search, but as far as evolution is concerned – where is this coming from? Is it coming from the clients, or from the search engines, or is it from your own creative teams?
Peter thinks its coming from all of these. The panelists generally agreed, noting that because search is so “human in nature”, it works very similarly in all countries around the world.
Peter finished the session by stating that new media is increasingly being optimized for search at the same time that spam tactics continue to evolve. Though the engines are doing a better job of filtering than ever before, the relevancy factor will continue to need protections.
