The Brooding Savage

Search has always been the Web 2.0 equivalent of Direct Mail.  The genius of Google has been to understand the clear action-oriented value of the text ad, and then sell it at auction based on the actual click, not the impression.  Impressions, after all, are for brand advertisers.  In the world of Google, the only thing that matters is immediate action.  Brand equity is a disposable quality, sacrificed to measured ROI.

Now Google, its stock price down 30% for the year, is releasing a study that claims that search advertising has value as a branding vehicle, too.  One supposes their hope is that advertisers will pour additional money into Google AdWords now that there’s extra undocumented value as a branding vehicle. 

In a MediaPost interview, Kevin Kells, Google's CPG Industry Director, said "Typically, ROI models for search don't give any value to a search impression, but this study finds that there's brand value in a search impression, particularly in top-of-mind awareness and purchase intent.”

The study exposed about 2400 searchers to one generic search term such as "drinks," or "make-up."  The pages included search results and paid search ads -- including some brands, but excluding others.  Respondents were then given a survey designed to measure brand impact in the areas of aided brand awareness, unaided brand awareness, purchase consideration, and purchase intent.

The survey results?  When polled immediately after seeing a search results page (SERP), respondents remembered those brands displayed on the page better than those brands that were not on the SERP page. In other words, respondents only recalled seeing things that they actually saw.

IMO, there actually is a tangible risk to brand equity from search ads. Search democratizes advertising, it diminishes strong brands, and gives credence to minor brands at the expense of major names.

Kells claims to be surprised by the results – especially that respondents did not easily recall the names of absent brands, especially when those brands were not shown to them. 

Those in marketing will immediately see the silliness of Google’s so-called research.  Brand equity is not measured immediately after showing someone an ad.  Brand equity is the ability of a brand to influence behavior over time -- long after an ad was seen and discarded. 

If Google wanted to demonstrate a brand-building value for text ads, they should have shown that, following a prolonged AdWords campaign, consumers had a more positive attitude toward the brand, or were more likely to buy that brand than its competitors.

IMO, there actually is a tangible risk to brand equity from search ads. Search democratizes advertising, it diminishes strong brands, and gives credence to minor brands at the expense of major names.

For example:  On a SERP page all text ads are essentially equal, without images or color or any differentiating components.  Placement is a product of price and SEO optimization -- and so any brand may appear in any place, next to any other competing brand.  In fact, it's very possible that a major national consumer product could end up being located directly under a cheap, knock-off product that happened to pay more for it's spot.  For the consumer, the ads are virtually identical -- neither offers any more panache than the other. 

In this context, the cheaper brand significantly benefits from appearing on the same forum as the national advertiser -- and the national brand gives away some of its cache to the cheaper interlocutor.  RC Cola is made equal to Coke -- and Coke suffers for it.

It's like inviting the Communist Party candidate to the presidential debate.  It gives the unknown candidate prestige to be included in the forum, and the Republicans and Democrats are made to look more common.  The effect of brand equity from multiple side-by-side search ads is a great question -- and one that should concern major advertisers.   That's a study that is worthy of Google.

In fairness, Kells does admit that one of the areas to explore is "media mix modeling that includes search and a look at the impact over time--two weeks out, one month out, etc."

According to Kells, the findings support "the need for ROI models of search to include the impression--not just the click--to value the effectiveness of a search campaign in CPG."  In other words – Google should earn more money.