Author Archives: ghotchkiss

Most Shoppers Don’t “Shop Around,” at least Physically

A new study from the Grizzard Performance Group found that US Shoppers don’t have time to “shop around”, with 62% not bothering to compare prices at even two stores. However, they’re very open to saving money, right up to the time of purchase. It’s just that they don’t have the time.

This ties in with my previous post about real time inventory and e-shopping, currently being tested by a a few online services at malls and major chain stores. When we can quickly and conveniently check prices at a number of stores in our area through our handheld devices, trust me, shopping will change forever. And then, a whole new dimension of direct response marketing comes into play. Last minute pushes of discounts at the point of purchase, delivered through your mobile device. As the study by Grizzard indicates, consumers are very open to saving money on a comparable product, even if it wasn’t previously in your consideration set. So consider this. The shopping engine knows what you’re looking for, knows where you are, and knows what comparable products are in stock in the same store. The advertiser can purchase the right to push a message to you right at the point of purchase, offering you 15% off their product, or even offering an automated “match and beat” deal, where it automatically matches the price of whatever you’re buying, and takes a further 10% off. A store around the corner could do the same thing, making it worth your while to check out at least one more store. All these things could easily be handled by algorithms and pre-set pricing thresholds.

And what if we take the Priceline approach? You’re ready to buy, but before you do, you send an offer to stores in your area with what you’re willing to pay for a particular product. The store in question can then decide whether to accept your offer or not. It would be true consumer control. And the really ironic thing? It’s a whole bunch of sophisticated technology, but it brings us right back to old fashioned haggling over the price. Isn’t it fascinating that the more sophisticated the technology, the closer we get to how we used to shop a century ago?

A Day in the Life

First published January 4, 2007 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its new statistical abstract. According to the study, here’s how the average adult or teen will spend his or her time in 2007:

  • 65 days in front of the TV;
  • 41 days listening to the radio;
  • A little over a week on the Internet;
  • A week reading a daily newspaper; and
  • Another week listening to recorded music.

I have just one question: Who the hell are these people? Nobody I know.

The Census Bureau was unavailable for comment on the findings, so I have to make some assumptions. I’m assuming that the Internet time includes any work-related activity. So I tallied up my time on the Internet, actively using it, and found I averaged about 4 hours a day. Granted, I’m not a normal user (in oh-so-many ways) but bear with me. That means I spend almost 2 months on the Internet in a year.

Okay, I represent an extreme, and I realize that. So how about my wife, Jill? She is above average in nearly every regard, but when it comes to Internet use, is probably a closer approximation of your garden-variety user. Jill spends about an hour-and-a-half online a day. That puts her at just over 3 weeks of surfing in a year. My kids? About two-and-a-half hours a day, the majority of that chatting with umpteen zillion friends simultaneously on Messenger and butchering the English language I love, but I digress. That’s about five-and-a-half weeks in a year.

Perhaps the whole Hotchkiss family is abnormal when it comes to using the Net. Who are the least Net-savvy people I know? My Mom and Dad. Even they spend a half hour a day online, which puts even them slightly higher than the U.S. average.

Let’s attack the question in a different way. Let’s put together a day in the life of this mythical average American. According to the statistical abstract, here’s how his or her day is spent:

4.27 hours watching TV

2.7 hours listening to the radio

And roughly a half hour each surfing the Net, reading a newspaper and listening to music

Let’s assume that this person gets an average of 7.5 hours sleep and spends another 1.5 hours eating. That leaves fewer than 7 hours a day to do everything else, including being gainfully employed (unless their job is actually watching TV). Into that basket would fall things like reading a book, going for a walk with your family, hitting the gym, cleaning up the house, going on a vacation and talking with friends. Something seems askew here.

So I’m left with two possibilities. Either I have a warped view of the world because everyone I know represents the extreme end of the spectrum, or the U.S. Census Bureau has its facts wrong. If it’s the former, that means there are people, somewhere, that are really dragging down our collective average by remaining comatose in front of the TV for the better part of a day. I knew they existed, I just didn’t know there were so many of them. And it can’t really be the second possibility, can it? I mean, when’s the last time you remember the government getting its facts wrong?

 

The Sausage Manifesto: An Open Letter on Click Fraud

Jeffrey Rohrs has posted an open letter to the PPC Networks calling for a fresh approach to tackling the click fraud issue. He’s named it the Sausage Manifesto. In it, he outlines 11 things he’d like to see the networks do:

  1. Talk, Don’t Lecture
  2. Appreciate Our Unique Circumstances
  3. Invest in Proportion to the Problem
  4. Acknowledge that Tracking Alone Is Not the Answer
  5. Improve Click Quality Customer Service
  6. Build a Click Quality Education Resource Center
  7. Light a Fire Under the IAB
  8. Play Nice with Others
  9. Put Somebody in Jail
  10. Create a Click Fraud Perp Registry
  11. Put Your Data Where Your PR Is

I agree with all Jeffrey’s points, but to varying degrees. I think some of them are probably not completely fair to Google and Yahoo, but they do sum up the level of frustration with advertisers, so they have to be addressed and taken seriously by the engines. If we use Shuman Ghosemajumder and his team at Google for an example, I think they’re working on points 1, 3, 4 and 7.  But most advertisers aren’t aware of the extent of the effort and that, combined with a natural skepticism about any messaging coming from the Networks, who have so much at stake, are impeding much needed communication.

For that reason, I absolutely think it’s time to knock down the walls. I agree completely with points 5, 6, 8, 10 and 11, especially 11. The whole problem here is the lack of reliable data. We’re trying to peer over the walls. Google and Yahoo in particular have to be more forth coming. Nothing solves a problem faster than exposing it to the light of day. Information is the answer here, and getting the information into as many hands as possible. I appreciate Google’s efforts to police the problem, but this can’t be a siloed effort, it has to be a collaborative one. Having wrestled with the issue through SEMPO, I’ve seen first hand how access to data to even judge the scope of the problem can be a tremendous challenge.

Thanks to Jeff Rohr for crystallizing the thoughts of a lot of advertisers. Hopefully it acts as a catalyst to push forward solutions.

Wikia Search: Should Google be Scared?

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is creating a bit of a stir with his new project, a wiki based search engine temporarily called Search Wikia. Of course, the media are jumping at the chance to postulate whether this will be a Google killer. Wired.com has an interview with Wales that looks at the concept in a little more depth.

Wales definitely comes out swinging on the project website. First, he calls it “a project to create the search engine that changes everything”. Bold, if nothing else.

He then comments:

“Search is part of the fundamental infrastructure of the Internet. And, it is currently broken.

Why is it broken? It is broken for the same reason that proprietary software is always broken: lack of freedom, lack of community, lack of accountability, lack of transparency. Here, we will change all that.”

A community based search property is an intriguing concept, but not a terribly new one. Open Directory, GoGuides and others have gone here before. The difference here is the total opening of control, and using a wiki platform for collaborative development of the search index.

Here is the challenge, as I see it.

It’s dependent on the involvement of the community. Wales has no idea how the community will be managed, and doesn’t really plan on figuring this out. “I don’t think it makes sense to manage a community.” He’s right. You can’t manage a community, you incentivize them.  You give them a reason to participate. Wales seems to think altruism will be the motivating factor:

“It’s about building a space where good people can come in and manage themselves and manage each other. They can have a distinct and clear purpose — a moral purpose — that unites people and brings them together to do something useful.”

I disagree. There are a few altruistic netizens out there, but not nearly enough to help make this dream a reality. It’s not a scalable concept. But, you say, what about Wikipedia? Isn’t that based on the same premise? Yes, and no.

I believe that the main motivation on contributing to Wikipedia is to spout off on something you know about, and to leave a semi permanent footprint on the shifting sands of the Web. Whether it’s attributed to you or not, when you can contribute to Wikipedia, you can point to something and say, “I did that. That’s me..and this is how smart I am on this particular topic.” I don’t think altruism has much to do with it.

In a search engine wiki, your contribution would be hidden in a human powered algorithm. You wouldn’t leave a footprint. There’s no sense of you, no bragging rights. There’s no compelling incentive to participate. And to bite off something at the scope Wales is envisioning, you would need huge numbers of people participating.

Personally, I would like to see Search Wikia work. But there’s a reason why community based search hasn’t worked til now. It’s the same reason social tagging has questionable viability. Anytime you’re asking people to be involved, you’ve introduced a limiting factor. There are a handful of people that get involved in something like this. They’re enough to get a concept off the ground, and they’ll do it because they’re motivated by different things than the other 99% of society. But once you burn off that resource, you’re stuck. Wales dream depends on tapping into the other 99%, and I just don’t see that happening. We don’t want to work that hard. There’s no “whats in it for me?” reward for doing the heavy lifting.

But hey, maybe I’m wrong. Go ahead and take a few minutes to post a comment telling me why the average Net user is a more giving person than I believe them to be. I’ll even give you credit for helping contribute to the betterment of the online world 😉

US Statistical Abstract: Time Well Spent?

The U.S. Census Bureau just released their new Statistical Abstact for 2007. In it, they predict the amount of time adults and teens will spend consuming media in various forms:

  • 65 days in front of the TV
  • 41 days listening to radio
  • A little over a week on the Internet in 2007
  • Adults will spend about a week reading a daily newspaper
  • Teens and adults will spend another week listening to recorded music
  • Consumer spending for media is forecasted to be $936.75 per person

What was interesting about this was noticing the gap that still exists between TV and Radio consumption and time spent on the Internet. To me, it’s indicative of the nature of engagement, at least for now.

According to these stats, we will spend 10X the amount of time in front of a television than we will spend in front of a computer cruising the Internet. The media release didn’t elaborate on the nature of time spent on the Internet. Does this mean work time as well?

Given these numbers, one can understand why the lion’s share of ad budgets still go to television, and I expect that TV sales execs will gleefully quote these given every possible opportunity. But consider the following:

  • The consumption of entertainment content online is in it’s infancy. Strike that, it’s actually embroyonic. If YouTube is the barometer of where we’re at, we have an immense way to go. All the hype about online video is still largely centered around viral growth amongst very early adopters who are watching amateur videos less than 3 minutes in length. It’s not the actual current  impact of online video that’s creating buzz, it’s the paradigm shifting that we have to do when we consider the democratization of content creation, the searchability of the digital format and the interactive possibilities that come with the online distribution channel.  All these things speak to a totally new experience. We’re just not there yet.
  • Think about the difference in your engagement level when you’re interacting with the Internet, as opposed to passively watching TV or listening to the radio. Think about how you respond to advertising messaging, especially when it’s relevant to the task you’re pursuing. The influence of this difference in engagement on consumers hasn’t been quantified yet, but at a gut level, we know it should be significant, probably a quantum leap in effectiveness. Actually, the numbers drive this home. In the research that’s been done on the impact of various channels on consumers, the Internet consistently ranks near the top, usually right after word of mouth, and much higher than television. And it has this impact with one tenth of the exposure time.
  • We need time to change our habits. Television watching has been ingrained in our daily routine for decades. Radio for a bit longer. Newspapers for centuries. The Internet is just celebrating its first decade as a widely accessible channel, and high speed access is less than 5 years old. Given that, the one week number is actually quite remarkable.

I’m sure these numbers will be quoted often, and spun in drastically different directions, depending on who’s doing the spinning. At first glance, my thought was “only one week?”. But as I thought about it, the numbers just emphasized the vast potential of online. What will be fascinating is to revisit this in a year’s time and see how these numbers change. In Internet terms, 12 months is an eternity.

Should Google Stick to the Knitting or See What Works?

I was just doing some year end cleaning of my “to be blogged about” folder and found a couple of lingering items from a few months back. While most of that time, that would make them hopelessly outdated, these two touch on a bigger theme that is still relevant, and is aligned strategically to a book I just finished re-reading.

First, the here-to-fore neglected articles. Did-It’s Bill Wise wrote a Search Insider column on how Google wins by losing, and John Markoff at the NY Times talked about the concern over “Google Sprawl”.  Both talk about Google’s strategy of pushing into new businesses at a frantic rate, seemingly trying to reinvent everything at the same time. But they take slightly different approaches. Bill’s opinion is that the strategy works because the string of new challenges, and the many subsequent failures, continually generates buzz for Google that keeps driving it’s main revenue channel, search. The NY Times reports on recently voiced Google concerns that the myriad of new initiatives will confuse users and impact the user trust in the Google brand. It also touches on the implied conundrum that comes with Google’s goal to integrate functionality into a simple and elegant interface, making it the online Swiss Army Knife, and it’s desire to keep user data open, steering away from the Microsoft approach that landed them in hot water with the Department of Justice. The timing of both pieces was right around the Google acquisition of Youtube.

There’s a bigger piece here that seems to be missing from both viewpoints. Let’s look at Wise’s assertion first:

“By continually announcing that it’s expanding beyond search, Google gains tremendous buzz, which translates into higher stock prices, which translates into still more buzz. All that attention keeps Google top-of-mind; by being top-of-mind, Google draws more users and more loyalty towards the Google brand–which means more searchers flock to Google Search, and more searchers stick with it. And it’s through Google Search that Google actually makes its money.

All that buzz is only beneficial if the new launches don’t succeed. If Google were to successfully expand past search, users would mistrust it as a corporate giant bent on empire-building–a problem that’s certainly familiar to Microsoft. Because Google fails at really getting a hold beyond search, users don’t see any effects of Google’s empire-building, and instead only see Google as a company that’s continually on the rise.”

The problem here is that Wise is confusing strategy and a by product of an approach that’s baked right into Google’s corporate DNA. I really don’t believe Google is purposely trying to fuel the buzz machine by venturing into areas with low odds for success. I believe Google does this because they don’t know any other way. It’s part of their genetic code.

Next, John Markoff starts to uncover the clues that point to the bigger picture:

“Google executives generally answer questions about acquisitions by saying that the company is still experimenting with business plans, or by arguing that a program like Sketch-Up — a simple computer-aided design program — will have an indirect revenue impact by making the entire Google service more valuable.”

To be sure, the culture of grass roots innovation that has been scrupulously nurtured at Google is at the same time it’s greatest strength and it’s greatest challenge. And despite the fact that Google is being hailed as a pioneer, it’s ground that has been trodden before. Google is hardly the first to go down this path. Which brings me to my renewed acquaintance with Jim Collin’s and Jerry Porras’s book Built to Last.

The Google mandate that a percentage of their engineer’s time be set aside to work on new, cool and cutting edge products is a chapter that was stolen right out of 3M’s playbook. And 3M, like HP, like Sony, like Motorola and like many of the other visionary companies profiled in Built to Last, started without a business plan. These companies worried first about the who, and then worried about the what. Google is clearly following in the same footsteps.

In fact, in the book, Collins and Porras show how visionary companies often “try a lot of stuff and keep what works”. Here is a pertinent quote from the book:

“Visionary companies make some of their best moves by experimentation, trial and error, opportunism, and – quite literally – accident. What looks in retrospect like brilliant foresight and preplanning was often the result of “Let’s just try a lot of stuff and keep what works.”

Collins and Porras devote a whole chapter to the topic. They show how many iconic corporations struggled, often for years, before they found the right business model. Google has a leg up on these, as they already have a very successful cash cow that’s driving their ability to “try a lot of stuff”. And it’s one notable area where Collins and Porras offer a different viewpoint from previous seminal works, including Tom Peters’ and Bob Waterman’s In Search of Excellence. Peters and Waterman advocate “Sticking to the knitting”, warning “the odds for excellent performance seems strongly to favor those companies that stay reasonably close to the businesses they know.”  Collins and Porras counter that if that were always the case, 3M would still be trying to run mines in Minnesota, HP would be selling nothing but audio oscillators and American Express would still be a delivery service.

The challenge for Google comes in not impacting the user, as Markoff identified in his article. Ironically, it comes from Google’s initial success in search. If Google search wasn’t as successful as it is, Google would have free reign to experiment. But they have to pay scrupulous attention to the user experience. I’ve commented before that Google’s biggest obstacle as a visionary company is it’s early success.

Here, Google is faced with the Yin and Yang challenge that faces all visionary companies. How to preserve the core while at the same time stimulate progress? And this gets down to a fundamental place where Google might be veering off track. Google’s core purpose, and the one that Google search succeeds very well at, is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.  This should be what the company scrupulously protects. All of Google’s free time initiatives should be aligned to that core purpose. But Google seems to be trying to pursue a number of core items at the same time. Redefining how advertising is bought and sold (recent forays into print and radio) seems to have little to do with Google’s stated core purpose. Controlling the main intersections of the new online global community (the purchase of YouTube) might be tangentially related, but clear alignment is not apparent. If Google stuck to their initial core purpose, that gives them scads of room for growth and innovation.

If Google is going to pursue a grassroots culture of innovation, that’s admirable. If they want to try experimenting in a number of areas and see what succeeds, while at the same time pruning out the failures, they can take comfort in knowing that strategy worked well in the past, notably for 3M. But to go down this path, it’s essential that an overarching core purpose be defined and communicated clearly to each and every Google employee. Innovation has to be aligned with a common goal. And when companies try to identify more than one core purpose, they can lose direction. Google might be well advised to see how other trailblazers have handled this in the past. For example, the core purpose of 3M is to solve problems through technology. While it’s broad and all encompassing, it does provide a sense of direction for 3M employees.

If I was to identify one challenge for Google to face in 2007, it would not be the fragmenting their business model, or even defining one. It would not be nailing another surefire revenue channel. It would be deciding, clearly and unequivocally, what they want to do, communicating the hell out of that internally and by doing that, point all that formidable brainpower in one direction.

What We Searched for in 2006

First published December 28, 2006 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Right about this time of year, you’ll see two things coming in your inbox in the way of search-related columns. First, there’s predictions for 2007 accompanied by scorecards of success for last year’s predictions; second, recaps of the top searches of 2006. I didn’t make any predictions last year, so I figure it’s too late to jump on the particular bandwagon, but as to the second, I’m fully on board! Last year, I took a look across the major engines and was somewhat disheartened with the lack of intellectual depth that was shown in our collective quest for knowledge. So, how did we fare this year?

Google Coming Clean?

Let’s start with Google. Unfortunately, one has to read between the lines on these various reports. The list isn’t actually the real list for any of them.. These lists are heavily filtered, and in Google’s case, seemingly altered to a substantial degree. Here is its reported top 10:
Bebo
Myspace
World Cup
Metacafe
Radioblog
Wikipedia
Video
Rebelde
Mininova
Wiki

A little investigative work at Google Trends (thanks to Danny Sullivan) soon uncovered the inconsistencies. Google’s reported No. 1 term, “bebo,” actually has nowhere near the volume of “myspace” and “world cup.” In fact, “bebo” is almost flat-lined at the bottom. I suppose there are internal excuses Google might have for the inconsistencies, including aggregation of misspellings, but just how many ways can you misspell bebo anyway?

The list actually becomes more interesting when you include some of the terms that got filtered out. A quick look shows that Google is often used for navigation. Terms like myspace and wikipedia are not queries for information, but a quick way to get to a site. Google has already deleted many navigational terms from the list, so let’s add the big ones, Yahoo, Google, MSN and YouTube and see what the trend chart looks like. Now we see the true search volumes, and that a lot of people are using Google to get from point A to B. What is a little disturbing is that searches for “Google” on Google hold the No. 2 spot, just behind Yahoo. This drips with irony, and not a little stupidity. “Hey..how do I get to Google? Oh..wait a minute, I’ll just search on Google” Duh!

Yahoo on the Red Carpet

Meanwhile, Yahoo seems to turning into the “Entertainment Tonight” of search engines. Once you navigate through the incredibly annoying user interface they slammed on it (please Yahoo, take two Jakob Nielsens and call me in the morning) you find that the top 10 on Yahoo are:
Britney Spears
WWE
Shakira
Jessica Simpson
Paris Hilton
American Idol
Beyonce Knowles
Chris Brown
Pamela Anderson
Lindsay Lohan

This is almost too sad to comment on. Almost. If these are the best things that searchers can throw at Yahoo, no wonder they’re struggling in the search engine showdown. It’s the equivalent of the tabloid rack at the grocery checkout counter.

Yahoo also allows a peek at other countries’ top-ten lists as well. Last year, the Germans showed a blend of Teutonic practicality and pure kinkiness, and nothing seems to have changed this year. The loosely translated Top Ten are as follows:
Weather
Route Planner
Erotica
Telephone Directory
Chat
Greeting Cards
Horoscopes
Games
Web
Paris Hilton

Well, at least wife swapping didn’t make the list this year.

The Brit Top Ten shows they love their dirt:
Heather Mills McCartney
Pete Burns
Big Brother
The Ordinary Boys
World Cup
Steve Irwin
Borat
Notting Hill Carnival
Zidane
Kate Moss

And my fellow Canadians? Well, at least we’re consistent, if not terribly exciting. NHL (The National Hockey League) tops the list once again.

The Search Engine formerly known as MSN

The MSN (now Live) list also shows a bias towards the entertainment side, but it also showed how out of touch I was with pop culture:
Ronaldinho
Shakira
Paris Hilton
Britney Spears
Harry Potter
Eminem
Pamela Anderson
Hilary Duff
Rebelde
Angelina Jolie

Okay, Britney I know, Pam I know, Paris I know. Who the heck is Ronaldinho–or what’s a Rebelde? I’ve since been clued in by soccer fans and a quick check on Wikipedia. Ronaldhino was FIFA World Player of the Year in 2004 and “Rebelde” is a Mexican TV series, for those of you equally pop-cult ignorant.

In the final analysis, what’s striking about these lists is what the search engines seem to be used for. Google has become the main intersection of the Web. Its top searches make clear its role as a traffic clearinghouse, routing millions of users through the results page as they navigate from point A to B. It’s infrastructural and essential. The top searches on Yahoo and MSN tell a different story–one of idle curiosity, no pressing plans and killing time. In a nutshell, this story crystallizes the fundamental problem Yahoo and Microsoft face if they hope to challenge Google as the king of the search hill. They have to become essential.

Happy New Year!

A Sign of Things to Come: eShopping at a Store near You

A small article in the Wall Street Journal (a subscription is needed to read the whole article) is a precursor of a big shake up to come. It’s something I’ve been predicting for sometime now, and while it will take awhile to gain traction, it will turn local retail upside down.

Three malls in California and one in Arizona have agreed to allow shoppers to check prices on actual inventory through text messages from their cell phones with a service called NearbyNow. According to their site, NearbyNow plans to add another 17 malls throughout the US to their network by April. Another service called Slifter is focusing on national chains like Best Buy, CompUSA and Foot Locker.

Here’s why this is revolutionary and why you’ll be hearing more.

  • For shopping, this represents discontinuous innovation. It’s a big win for the user, allowing them to shop smarter than ever before. Consumer demand will drive adoption of this new approach.
  • For retailers, this is scary as hell. By allowing their inventory to be captured realtime, they’re agreeing to be compared side by side with everyone else, including online retailers with no physical overhead to drive up prices. It completely levels the playing field.
  • As a number of technologies improve and converge, this will become substantially more useful and powerful. Mobile computing, GPS and search functionality will make this a must have for consumers.
  • It completely fuses the online and offline worlds, making the transition seamless.

This is one of those ideas you just know will take off, but there’s going to be some significant hurdles to overcome. These services are only as good as their success at signing up merchants. The more stores in the network, the more successful. If only a few are included, consumers will always wonder if there’s a better deal that isn’t part of the service, defeating the purpose. And a number of retailers will resist this trend til the bitter end. Ultimately, it will be consumer insistence that will force the laggards to join.

Another challenge will be the user interface. Right now, both services run on cell phones, meaning you have to deal with an awkward keypad and stripped down display. But this problem will rectify itself with advances in mobile technology.

In the world of shopping, this changes everything.

No Real Surprises in the Latest iCrossing Study

iCrossing released the results of a new study conducted by Harris Interactive just before the holidays. The study looked at the role of online in the CPG market. A media release outlines the key findings, including:

  • Consumers look for CPG’s online, with 39% of US adults confirming they’ve conducted a search for CPG’s.
  • Women do this more than man. Footwear and apparel lead the categories searched for.
  • Online CPG searches often result in offline sales. Much of this activity is looking for sales or special offers at traditional bricks and mortar retail locations.
  • Activity is spread pretty evenly over search engines, retailer websites and manufacturer’s sites. Shopping engines and consumer information sites have substantially less traffic.

There are a few notable take aways here that speak to the future use of online. Most CPG’s have been slow to move to online as a marketing channel. The more commoditized the product, the less the online research activity, or so traditional marketing wisdom has told us. Certainly, CPG’s have been very slow to enter the search arena, yet the iCrossing study tells us that there is a significant portion of the consumer population are turning online to research these every day purchases.

To be honest, I think the study is probably underreporting the frequency of this. At Enquiro, we’re steering away from self reported survey based vehicles as a sole vehicle to look at search behavior, because we find that people have trouble recalling how often they use search and what they use it for. It’s become second nature for us to turn to online, and that in turn usually means search. So in a survey like the iCrossing one, memory lapses usually mean overly conservative numbers.

Another notable trend that would influence the findings are the increasing spread of high speed internet access. The likelihood of this CPG online activity happening is directly related to how handy a computer with an internet connection is. The more ubiquitous access is, the more we’ll do a quick look up on everything. About the only purchases I make now that I don’t do some form of online research about are groceries. And as local search becomes more robust, that will probably change too.

I’ve been predicting another surge of advertising dollars migrating into search over the next year or two. As we understand more how universal online research truly is, and how a lot of major advertisers are completely missing this very important touchpoint, more budget will find it’s way into search. While there are no real surprises in the iCrossing study, it’s good that major advertisers are continually reminded that they’re missing a rather large boat.