Marketing communication: principles and practice

part of the Future of Advertising Stakeholders (FAST) summit:
•
consumer acceptance
•
standardized measurement
•
models of interactive advertising
•
ease of purchase of online media
With some thirty-three brands involved in some form of Internet advertising, 
a marketing investment fund called ‘Incent’ was established for testing online
advertisements to encourage more activity in this burgeoning field. They even have a
‘digital brand manager’. By 2001, all interactive funding will be part of brand budgets.
In 1998, P&G’s interactive team created and ran 200 interactive advertisements. The
Internet is also part of product launch, where TV advertising directs consumers to a
website where they can request product samples in advance of stockists receiving
shipments. One campaign achieved a click-through rate of 20 per cent.
They are now reviewing whether the advertising impression is the best measure
for brand building.

---

A D V E R T I S I N G A S C O M M U N I C A T I N G
285
One example of the advertising feature of the Google site is the displaying of Amazon.com
book titles at the top of search results pages, related to the queries entered by users. Google
intends to match consumer searches with many other products for advertisers. Thus, 
Google provides targeted advertising opportunities in the form of direct matching of
keywords and key phrases, and relevant Internet categories. An enhanced text-link appears
at the top of a Google results page whenever the keyword or phase purchased by the
advertiser is queried by a Google user. Alternatively, advertisers can select from a range
of Internet categories created by the PageRank algorithmn (see below). Google then matches
the advertisement to appear on the search results page if that category is relevant to the
searcher’s query.
In June 2000, Google’s WWW index listed more than 1 billion web pages (equivalent to
searching a stack of paper more than 70 miles high in less than half a second!) that can be
searched in ten languages. In effect, Google’s 4,000+ server machines index the entire Web,
which has grown from about 50 million pages in 1995. The patented PageRank technology
examines the number of people viewing each web page and 500 million variables and 2
billion terms to rank each page. The algorithm calculates the ‘authority’ of the pages – if the
site is good, it is reasoned, many other websites will link to it. Other features examined
include the placement of links on the page, font sizes and capitalization, and so on. As the
Web gets bigger, the Google service scales up with it, making Google’s competitive
advantage simply that their service gets smarter.
So who is part of the audience that Google delivers to their advertisers? They have distinct
demographics: 65 per cent are male with at least a first degree; 73 per cent have professional
occupations. Average income is $71,000. Online experience exceeds four years for 58 per
cent of users; 48 per cent access the Internet from work; 71 per cent report ‘high’ or ‘very
high’ for their computer skills. A user satisfaction survey by NPD Research Group (New Media
Services) ranked Google first overall of search engines and WWW portals for site
effectiveness, user opinion of the site, and loyalty. Some 94 per cent of users expressed their
willingness to recommend the site to a friend; 98 per cent rated Google as better than the
other sites, while 97 per cent find what they are searching for all or most of the time. Google
is chosen for their searches by 70 per cent because the service delivers the best results.
The business is being built on a foundation of providing users with the best search experience
that makes the service indispensable. What a basis for selling matched advertising
resources! Google can claim added value and can show the data to prove it.
The Google phenomenon is growing apace. In a recent search engine report
a 
the author
commented
reviewers continue to rave about Google, as does the general public. When I speak
about search engines to groups and mention Google, something unusual happens to
some members of the audience. They smile and nod, in the way you do when you feel
like you’ve found a secret little getaway that no one else knows about. And each time
I speak, I see more and more people smiling and nodding this way, pleased to have
discovered Google.
Google Inc. was established as a spin-out from the Stanford Research Institute with $25m in
start-up funding in 1998.
(See www.google.com, www.yahoo.com and www.npd.com)
Note
: 
a
www.searchenginewatch.com/ereport/00/07-yahoo.html

---