Category Archives: Brand Building

How Google Became a Verb

First published December 31, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

It’s probably because I’m just finishing a book (The Stuff of Thought) by famed linguist and cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, but grammar has been on my mind more than usual lately. And in particular, I was fascinated by how we use Google in our language. Google, of course, has been “genericided” – the fate that falls on brands that lose their status as a protected brand name and become a generic term in our vocabulary. This causes much chagrin with Google’s legal and marketing team. What is more interesting however is the way we’ve taken Google into our lexicon.

Of Nouns and Verbs

Most brands, when they get incorporated into our language, become nouns. Kleenex, aspirin, escalators, thermoses and zippers all went down similar paths on the road to becoming common terms that described things. It might interest you to know, for instance, that in Japan, staplers are known as Hotchkisses (or technically, hochikisu). Google, however, is different. The word Google doesn’t replace the noun “search engine,” it replaced the act of searching. We made googling a verb. And that is a vital difference. We don’t call all search engines Google. But we do refer to our act of searching as googling.

More than this, we made Google a transitive verb – “I googled it”. That means I (the subject) used Google (the verb) to do something with it (the object). Pinker says the way we use words betrays the way we think about the world. Verbs are the lynchpins of our vocabulary, because we use them to explain how we interact with our physical world. And transitive verbs, in particular, act as connectors between us and the world. I once said that search was the connector between intent and content. The enshrining of Google as a verb reflects this. The act of googling connects us with information.

Sampling the Outside World through Google

But the use of Google as a transitive verb also gives us a glimpse into how we regard the gathering of the content we Google. Transitive verbs tend to reflect a transfer from the outside to the inside, a consumption of the external, either physically or through our senses: I drank it, I ate it, I saw it, I heard it, I felt it. In that sense, their use is personal and fundamental. “I googled it” gives us a sense of metaphorical transference – the consumption of information.

So, what does this mean? If you look at the role of our language, there is something of fundamental importance happening here. Language is our collection of commonly accepted labels that allow us to transfer concepts from our heads into the heads of others. These labels are not useful unless they mean the same thing to everyone. When I say thermos, you know instantly what I mean. Your visualization of it might be slightly different than mine (a Batman thermos from grade 5 is the image that I currently have) but we can be confident that we’re thinking about the same category of item. We have a shared understanding.

Speaking a Common Language

This need for commonality is the threshold that new words must cross before they become part of common language. This means that critical mass becomes important. Enough of us have to have the same concept in our heads when we use the same label before that label becomes useful. Generally, when technology introduces a concept that we have to find a new label for, we try a few variations on for size before we settle on one that fits. Common usage is the deciding vote.

With things like new products, the dominant brand has a good chance of becoming the commonly used label. Enough of us have experience with the brand to make it a suitable stand in for the product category. We all know what’s meant by the word escalator. And new product categories creep up fairly regularly, forcing us to agree on a common label. In the last decade or two, we’ve had to jam a lot of new nouns in our vocabulary: ATM’s, fax, browser, Smartphones, GPS, etc. Few of these categories have had enough single brand domination to make that brand the common label. Apple has probably come the closest, with iPod often substituting for MP3 player.

The material nature of our world means that we’re forever adding new nouns to our vocabulary. There are always new things we have to find words for. That’s why one half of all the entries in the Oxford dictionary are nouns. The odds of a brand name becoming a noun are much greater, simply because the frequency is higher. And by their nature, nouns live apart from us. They are objects. We are the subjects.

The Rarity of a Verb

But verbs are different. Only one seventh of dictionary entries are verbs. Verbs live closer to us. And the introduction of a new verb into our vocabulary is a much rarer event. This makes the critical mass threshold for a verb more difficult to pass than for a noun. First of all, enough of us have to do the action to create the need for a common label. Secondly, it’s rare for one brand to dominate that action so thoroughly. The birth of googling as a verb is noteworthy simply because so many of us were doing something new at the same place.

Why did I share this linguistic lesson with you? Again, it’s because so many of us are doing something at the same place. New verbs emerge because we are doing new things. We do new things because something drives us to do them. That makes it a fundamental human need. And to have that fundamental human need effectively captured by one brand – to the point that we call the act by the brand’s name – offers a rare opportunity to catalogue human activity in one place. One of the most underappreciated aspects of search marketing is the power of search logs to provide insight into human behavior. That’s what my first column of 2010 will be about.

And, just to leave you with a tidbit for next week, currently another brand name is on the cusp of becoming a verb (although it’s exact proper form is still being debated). The jury is still being assembled, but Twitter could be following in Google’s footsteps.

A Great Question: Why Don’t Big Companies “Get It?”

At our event in the Bay area last week, Marketo Marketing Director Jon Miller gave a very compelling presentation about how they’ve put a comprehensive sales and marketing strategy together that not only blows away performance benchmarks in his category, but outstrips what would be considered “Best of Breed” campaigns. At the same event, someone from a huge company asked who were the companies that were “doing it right” in B2B. A panel of very smart B2B marketers looked at each other, struggling to come up with a single name. Finally, Jon said “Well, I think we’re doing it pretty well.” It might have sounded boastful, but Jon had the numbers to back up his claim.

I’ve thought about that a lot in the few days since. Why can a small company like Marketo put together a digital campaign that integrates all the right pieces and gets them to click while a Fortune 500, with all their resources available, can’t?  Why are smaller companies much more likely to “Get It”, with a big G?

“Getting it with a Big G”

First, I should explain what I mean by Big G “Getting It.” When I look at the most successful marketers in the digital ecosystem, they have a unique ability to position themselves at exactly the right place on the digital adoption curve. They can read where their markets are going and seem to be there at the right time with the right offering. They offer something so compelling that adoption is a no brainer. These companies have a magical ability to combine the promise and advantages of game changing technology with a intuitive sense of what the market wants. Think Amazon, eBags, NetFlix & Zappos.

Hmmm..you say. No B2B companies in that mix? I would put Salesforce there, but after that, it gets difficult to think of B2B marketers who have found the sweet spot of the adoption curve. That’s why our panel was stumped when asked for examples of B2B companies that “Get It.”

I think the answer lies in the inherent nature of the companies that “Get It”. I suspect there are things that are natural here that it’s almost impossible for bigger companies to emulate. This follows up an earlier post about companies that seem to naturally benefit from SEO. As I thought more about it, I realized it comes down to a few common things:

Top Down, Bottom Up Buy In – Getting a company aligned and on the same page is just a whole lot easier when an executive meeting consists of leaning back in your chair and yelling across the hallway. There’s immediacy of communication and, through this, agreement, that’s intoxicating in a smaller company. If you get executive commitment to an initiative, the entire company can know about it and start executing in minutes if required.

Nimbleness –  With quicker communication comes nimbleness. Smaller companies move faster than big companies, and in the digital marketplace, that’s a vital advantage. If you get that rarest of animals, a small company with seasoned executives who have “been there, done that”, you get a tremendously effective execution machine: a company who knows what to do and can actually do it without dealing with energy sucking inertia.

Growing Up Digital – The handful of companies that I see have almost all grew up in a natively digital market. The online marketplace is baked right into their DNA. Another important point: they get technology, but they’re not star struck by it. If they’re chasing a social media strategy, it’s because they understand that it’s because conversations are happening and they need to be part of them, not because they’ve been caught up in the buzz and hyperbole of it.

It’s Not Marketing, It’s How We Roll – The idea of marketing as a separate department or discipline seems to belong to a past generation. In the successful new breed of companies that “Get It”, marketing best practices are so deeply woven into the fabric of the company that it’s impossible to separate them from all the other stuff the company does. They just do the things that are right for the customer, and everything good seems to naturally flow from that. If you want to call it marketing, fine, but it’s not the first label they’d put on it. They tend to use words like “culture” and “core values.”

Living Closer to the Customer – This ingrained ability to anticipate customer needs comes from living closer to the customer.  There is very little distance between everyone in the company and all their customers in smaller businesses. The CEO knows and understands at a gut level what the customer wants from them. And, if you have an executive that knows how to execute (rarer than you might think) you’ve got consistently happier customers.

Those are my observations after a few days thought, but this question of why smaller, newer companies seem better positioned to evolve in the new marketplace is one that needs more thought. If you could take a few minutes to share any examples of companies that you think embody these characteristics, I’d be grateful. Just add a comment to the blog and I’ll start compiling a list of examples to both share and to take a closer look at.

Brand Religion: A Reading from the Book of Skittles

First published March 5, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

There’s something about Tuesdays. Just when I’m starting to think about what my Thursday column is going to be about, something hits my inbox that seems freakishly timely. This time, it was David Berkowitz’s ode to Skittles.com. My intention was to write about brand religions playing out online, and here, in all its gory, real-time splendor, was a parable made to order. It would be unseemly, not to mention unfaithful, not to read the signs from above and pick up this story thread so graciously thrown in front of me.

Now, let’s get the Skittle Scuttlebutt out of the way, as more has transpired since the last time David spoke. As David said, Skittles.com is no longer a site, but a Flash navigation bar that hovers over live feeds from other Skittles-oriented online destinations. Originally, the home page was a live Twitter Feed, but the ignoble masses had the temerity to use the Skittles name in vain, so that idea was scuttled and the TweetFest was moved back to a section called “Chatter.” Now the home page is a feed of the Wikipedia entry (which has been updated to include the story, so it’s like a never-ending feedback loop). You can also visit the brand’s Facebook “Friends” page. There are some massive usability issues, but that aside, nobody can scoff at Skittles for a lack of courage.  It remains to be seen how successful this is, but the fact is, almost 600,000 fans have signed up on Facebook, and the brand has generated huge buzz.
So, what is a parable for, if not to learn from? And here are 10 commandments for every brand who fancies themselves a religion, if they have the courage to go where Skittles has gone:

1.    Thou Shalt Not Expect Everyone to Believe. As was shown in the Skittles case, if you choose to live by the Social Media Sword, understand you can also die by the Social Media Sword. Opening up the conversation to your believers also means you open the doors to the non-faithful, who will take every opportunity to express themselves.

2.    Thou Shalt Not Build Your Own Churches. Believers like to build their own churches and not have the brand build it for them. This is almost never successful. Skittles is trying to find middle ground by using their site as a shortcut to a few online destinations that help define the online image of Skittles. It’s an interesting move, but I believe it will ultimately be a short-lived one. For one thing, it’s confusing as hell.

3.    Thou Shalt Have No Illusions of Control. If a brand goes down this path, they have to accept (everyone, repeat after me — and that means you, Mr/Ms CEO) that by opening the door to the masses, they abdicate all control. If Skittles.com turns sour, all Skittles can do is pull the plug on their official endorsement. The buzz will outlive the campaign and take on a life of its own.

4.    Thou Shalt Understand the Web is a Fragmented Place. What is interesting about the Skittles experiment is that it’s a tentative acknowledgement that the sum total of a brand lives in many places online. The idea of defining the boundary within one Web site is long dead.

5.    Thou Shalt Honor Thy Product. You have to have a pretty damn popular product to take this step. There’s probably nothing more innocuous than Skittles (who could hate a little fruit candy?) and yet some still managed to spout bile all over this little social media stunt. The more beloved the product (and the company behind it), the more secure you can be in letting your fans be your spokesperson.

6.    Thou Shalt Accept What One is Given. If your brand builds a devout following, your customers will take it upon themselves to generously share more than you ever expected about what the brand is, what it isn’t and what it should be. You have opened up more than a dialogue; you have embarked on a weird and wonderful partnership with your customers. Embrace this or lose it. Consider the story of Timberland, who had no idea that they’d become the chosen footwear of hip-hop. At first they disbelieved it, then they ignored it, then they fought it — and finally, they embraced it. Today, you can customize your Timberlands in pink and purple with your own monogrammed tag and customized embroidery: a fully pimped pump.

7.    Thou Shalt Know Thy Flock. If you’re going to intersect your faithful where they live, you have to know something about them. David wondered if Twitter was really the best social media choice for the Skittles target market. If your brand has already established online places of worship, spend some time in stealth mode and get the lay of the land before you go public.

8.    Thou Shalt Listen. Online gives you thousands of listening posts to get the pulse of your brand. One example I saw this week: the iPhone app Dial Zero. It’s a nifty little assistant that gives you tips to avoid the dreaded voicemail dead zones for over 600 companies. A quick look up and you have tips to connect with an actual live person. But what’s even more interesting is that it shows real-time comments from people who’ve recently called.

9.    Thou Shalt Live Up to Your Flock’s Beliefs. With devotion comes responsibility. In return for their brand loyalty, they will hold you to a higher standard. They have emotionally invested in your brand, so if you disappoint them, it will leave a bigger scar than just a passing frustration. Hell hath no fury like a customer scorned.

10.    Thou Shalt Count Thy Blessings Every Day. Brand evangelism. Brand loyalty. The willingness to pay a premium. An unwavering devotion untouched by the millions in advertising spent by your competitors. A much lower cost of acquisition. And millions of pages of customer-generated content. All brands should be so lucky.

Can Brands Keep Their Promise in a Digital World?

First published February 26, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

To speculate on the future of brand advertising is certainly beyond the scope of this column, but I got myself into this mess. I opened the can of worms two weeks ago in the Search Insider by warning that we could be running the search funnel dry. Ryan DeShazer, from HSR, called me on it and asked me what will replace traditional brand building in our new digital environment. Last week, I began the journey by talking about two different types of brands: Brand Promises and Brand Religions. Today, I’d like to paint a hypothetical scenario of where awareness marketing might go for those brands  that are implicit promises. Next week I’ll tackle religions.

Timing is everything

One of the challenges of brand advertising has always been the disconnect between the times in our lives when we’re thinking about a product and the opportunity for a brand exposure. How do you deliver a brand message at just the right time?  The goal of situational targeting became advertising’s Holy Grail. A few channels, such as in-store promotions and well-placed coupons, at least got marketers closer to being in the right place at the right time, but did little to build brand at this critical time. A significant discount might prompt a consumer to try an unfamiliar brand, but the new brand was always fighting the well worn groove of consumer habits. Trying a new product once doesn’t guarantee you’ll ever try it again (reading list suggestion: “Habit, the 95% of Behavior that Marketers Ignore.” )

The disconnect between the purchasing situation and the need to establish brands mentally (literally burn them into our brains) meant marketers played both ends against the middle. They used TV and other branding mediums to build awareness. Then they used direct-response tactics to tip the balance toward purchase when the situation was right. But in between was a huge gap that has swallowed billions of advertising dollars. The challenge facing digital marketing is how to bridge the gap.

Don’t Take Our Word for It
The answer to bridging the gap for a brand that promises quality lies in a few converging areas: the online social graph and mobile computing. Both areas are in their infancy, but they hold the promise of solving the Brand Promise marketer’s dilemma.

If a brand is a promise of quality, we want to hear confirmation of that by someone other than the brand. A brand’s advertising might make us willing to consider them, but we want confirmation of the promise of quality from an objective third party. The Web has made it much easier to access the opinions of others. And, through platforms like Facebook and Twitter, we are now able to “crowdsource” — reach out to our trusted circle of family, friends and acquaintances and quickly poll them for their opinions. But this is still a fragmented, multi-step process that requires a lot of time and cognitive effort on our part. What happens when we weave the pieces together into a smooth continuum?

Keeping Marketing in Hand
Mobile has the ability to do that, because it provides us with a constant online connection. Consider the implications. As we store more of our “LifeBits”  (check out Aaron Goldman’s columns  on this fascinating project) online and rely more and more on digital assistance to make our lives easier, the odds of determining our intent by  where we are and what we’re interacting with in our own “Web” improve dramatically. Our online persona becomes an accurate reflection of our mental one.  With mobile devices, our digital and physical locations merge and through technologies like MOBVIS, we can even parse our surrounding visually. All this combines to give the marketer very clear signals of what we might be thinking about at any given time.

Now, advertising can be delivered with pinpoint accuracy: think of it as behavioral targeting on steroids. Not only that, it can be the first step in a continuum: we get a targeted and relevant messaging, with the ability to seamlessly pull back objective reviews and opinions on any given product, location or service. Going one step further with just one click, we can reach out through multiple social networks to see if any of our circle of acquaintances has an opinion on the purchase we’re considering. If brands are a promise, this allows us to vet the promise instantly. If all checks out, we quickly check for best prices and possible alternatives within the geographic (or online) parameters we set.

In this scenario, the nature of brand-building for the brand promise product changes dramatically. We rely less on manufacturer’s messaging and more on how the brand resonates through the digital landscape. Brand preference becomes more of a spur-of-the-moment decision. Of course, the brands will still try to stake the high ground in our mental terrain through traditional awareness-building, but I suspect it will become increasingly more difficult to do so. Ultimately, brands will try to move their position from one of a promise of quality (a promise easily checked online) to a religion, where faith can play the spoiler.

Brand Promises vs Brand Religions

First published February 19, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I wish Steve Ballmer would check with me before he does these things. Last week Microsoft announced it was launching Microsoft-only retail outlets similar to the successful Apple Stores. My intention with this column was to follow up on last week’s column, “No Search is an Island,”  which prompted some interesting comments.

My point was that search captures awareness-created demand, it doesn’t generate it. If you want to continue to harvest from the bottom of the funnel, you need something to prime the top. And many, quite rightly, pointed out that traditional methods of priming the top, including TV, are becoming less and less effective. Martin Lindstrom, in his book “Buy-ology,”   references extensive neuro-scanning studies that showed that millions of dollars are being wasted in ineffective brand building.

So what is effective brand building in the new digital world? What is the best way to prime the pump? As I started to think about that, I realized the answer depends on the nature of the brand to be built. And, as I was chewing that over, the Microsoft story hit my inbox and I realized that it captured the essence of two distinct characters of brand: promise and religion. These two characters of brand occupy two totally different places in our mindscape, and so have to be treated differently, no matter what branding channel you choose to use.

The Origin of the Brand Promise

A brand is a collection of symbols, experiences and associations connected with a product, a service, a person or any other artifact or entity.

This is how Wikipedia defines  brand. But here’s the thing. Brands aren’t defined by Wikipedia. They’re defined by each one of us, in a way unique to us. Ford means one thing to you, another thing to me. Every brand has this same inherent characteristic. All Ford can do is contribute the raw materials used to create the concept of the Ford brand in my mind, but it can’t control how I put those things together.

Originally, all brands started as a promise of quality to the consumer. People were familiar with goods produced by local craftsman. The craftsman was the brand: the more skilled the creator, the higher the quality and the more trust placed in the product. Mass production needed to provide that peace of mind, so brands were placed on products as an assurance of quality. But somewhere in the latter half of the 20th century, brands became more than a promise, they became a religion. And that’s where everything became really wacky. Brands moved from a rational evaluation of quality to an emotional connection.

A Religious Experience

All brands want to become a religion, but not all brands have what it takes to make the transition, at least with a substantial number of customers. GM is a promise, BMW is a religion. United is a promise, JetBlue is a religion. And sorry to tell you this, Steve — but Microsoft is a promise, Apple is a religion.

Promises and religions are judged by different criteria. The customer-product relationships are driven by different motivations. If your brand is not a religion, you can’t suddenly build a church and expect people to worship. I see Microsoft retail stores as destined for dismal failure. First of all, Microsoft products are ubiquitous, so why do I need to go to a special store to find them? Secondly, Microsoft products have none of the religious aura surrounding them that Apple products do. The Microsoft brand never became more than a promise.

Brand Starts and Ends at the Core

One thing that both these natures of brand have in common: ultimately they depend on the values, integrity and effectiveness of the organization that creates the brand. If the brand is a promise of a level of quality, you can’t break the promise with immunity, especially in a digitally amplified world of blogs, forums and buzz. Each of the “promise” brands I used as examples, GM, United and Microsoft, stand in danger of their promises losing all meaning with customers. A promise is only as good as the level of trust you’ve built with the recipient.

But if the brand is a religion, the culture of the organization becomes even more important. Irrational decision factors run amok: the perceived culture of the organization, how the brand label connects with who we are, the social circles it places us it, or the circles we wish it would place us in, the values the company stands for, the exclusivity of the brand. The brand relationship becomes a complex stew of beliefs and emotions. We only make this investment for brands that hold a unique position in our mindscape. We feel we have to get as much from the brand as we’re willing to give it in terms of our emotional loyalty. And if a brand doesn’t reciprocate, it is quickly downscaled from a religion to a passing fancy.

I Am What I Buy (Sometimes)

One of the most ironic things about humans is that we seek to define who we are as individuals by the social associations we make. We stand out by joining groups. And this is a huge motivating factor in the brands we chose to give religious devotion to (Rob Walker’s book “Buying In” is a great exploration of this). Using a Mac puts us in the top 10% of the technically cool population (aka Justin Long). Using Windows means we’re lumped in with the remaining 90% of poor, boring schlumps (aka John Hodgman). Again, not a very compelling reason to seek out a Microsoft store.

This dichotomy of branding becomes important when we look at how brand awareness may be built online. First, you have to be brutally honest about assessing whether your brand is a promise or a religion. It worries me greatly that Microsoft seems to be suffering from delusions of brand religion. There’s nothing wrong with being a solid promise. Many brand religions started there. Personally, I believe brands would be much better off worrying more about delivering on a promise and less about becoming a religion. By the way, it’s unusual for the biggest brand in a category to be the religious brand (Coke is one exception). It’s tough to be unique when you’re following the herd.

But the first step is accepting what you are.

Al Ries Slight Off on GM’s Brand Woes

Who am I to disagree with Al Ries on branding? No matter, I’ll take a swing at it anyway.

In AdAge, Ries takes GM to task (may need a subscription) for not creating strong brands, which in turn was triggered by an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “How Detroit Drove Into a Ditch“. The WSJ article places the blame on Detroit’s failure to understand the nature of the Japanese competition:

“Just as America didn’t understand the depth of ethnic and religious divisions in Iraq, Detroit failed to grasp — or at least to address — the fundamental nature of its Japanese competition. Japan’s car companies, and more recently the Germans and Koreans, gained a competitive advantage largely by forging an alliance with American workers.”

Ries disagrees:

“Nowhere in this entire article is a mention of Detroit’s failure to build powerful brands. Rather the blame is placed almost totally on problems in the factories.”

I have to say, I side much more with the WSJ on this one. Just where, I wonder, does Ries think brand comes from? He seems to think it’s somehow seperated from what happens on the factory floor…that brand is somehow magically concocted in a Madison Avenue boardroom and lives and thrives independent of the crap that comes off the assembly line. It’s a troubling throwback to the arrogant assumption of marketing control that I believe is at least partly responsible for the situation we currently find ourselves in: you don’t have to worry about being good, as long as your advertising is. Consider the examples of successful brands that Ries uses as examples:

“It seems to me that the fundamental nature of Detroit’s Japanese competition is its ability to build brands. Toyota stands for reliability, Scion for youth, Prius for hybrid, Lexus for luxury. “

It’s not a marketing ploy that has determined that Toyota stands for reliability. It’s superior quality control. I question Lexus’s exclusive claim to luxury, or Scion’s claim to youth, but their success in both markets comes directly from the appeal of their products and an acceptance of this by the target market, not by any particular marketing genius. And the success of the Prius as the definition of hybrid comes from engineering excellence and the ability of Toyoto to make it into a practical vehicle. This isn’t marketing, this is just being better than the competition.

Ries seems to suffer from the delusion that brands can be unilaterally built. In the hyper connected reality of today, brands can, at best, be mutually agreed upon. Brand is a label that is connected in the cortex. All the advertising in the world can plant some mental seeds, but if the reality doesn’t connect, those seeds wither and die. It wasn’t Detroit’s ineptness in advertising that killed them, it was their ineptness in every single aspect of their business.

The hole that GM (and Detroit) has dug for themselves has been built over the last 40 years. And contrary to Ries’s opinion, Detroit has been extraordinarily successful in creating brands. Consider the cultural legacy of the Mustang, the Corvette, the Cadillac, the Jeep. These are brands that were once rich with meaning..with mental connections that resonated and rang true with enthusiasts. But the meaning has been eroded away because the products didn’t live up to the promise. And the reasons had nothing to do with advertising, it’s was squarely rooted in what came off of the factory floor, and everything that contributed to it: shoddy workmanship, antagonist relationships with workers, squeezing vendors for every last cent, arrogant management, lack of respect for customers and poor service in the dealer network.

What is true is if the product doesn’t deliver on the promise, word spreads much quicker now. And perhaps that was the final nail in Detroit’s collective coffin. The new connected marketplace allowed us to call bullshit in a way that is heard much further and much louder.

It’s not that Detroit can’t build a brand. It’s that they just can’t build a very good vehicle.

Brands on Search: Connecting during Consideration

First published November 20, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Last week, I talked about what brand can’t do on the search results page. Today, I’d like to talk about one of the many things that brand can do on search.

If brands can’t build an emotional appeal on the results page, they can certainly reinforce their presence at just the right time. This was at the heart of our brand lift studies. Remember, we use search when our intent is squarely aligned with researching a purchase. We’re actively looking for information. And the appearance of brands can be a powerful influencer in these types of searches. Here are some of the surprising and not so surprising things we’ve found in our many brand lift studies:

There is brand lift that comes from dominating the top of page. The biggest question for our first study was, how valuable are those top-of-page slots? If you own the organic position, do you need to buy the top sponsored spot? Is there lift by owning both spots? The answer is yes, to both. The lift we saw in most metrics was well into double digits, significant for marketers. You gain a bigger share of mind when you own more top-of-page real estate. But that’s not all…

You lose brand awareness when you’re not there. For generic keywords, even if you have a strong brand in a category, if you’re not in a result set and your competitors are, your position of dominance will start to erode. In fact, we’ve seen people looking for dominant brands in a result set when they weren’t present, and their confidence in both the quality of the search results and the brand position started to erode. Often, it’s the biggest and strongest brands that are the least concerned about their search visibility. This arrogance could wipe them from the consideration set of many prospective buyers.

Competition on the results page is a good thing. If domination of a results page is good, total domination must be better, right? Well, no, actually. We found more engagement with the top-of-page results when there were a couple of well-known competitors, and engagement led to an overall lift in brand awareness for the test brand. The reason has to do with the intent of the user. If a user is launching a search looking for alternatives to consider in a purchase decision, a results set with only one brand isn’t a very good match to that intent. The user will spend less time considering it, because their confidence is lower. But a results set that brings back two or three well-known brands is a better match, resulting in more engagement. Of course, you’re now competing with those brands, so effective messaging, positioning and landing page strategies become more important. But you already knew that, right?

Top sponsored ads are read more. Top organic placement is a beautiful thing to have, but our studies have shown that people actually spend more time reading the top sponsored ad. This doesn’t make the top organic placement any less important. It’s a default choice for many users. But the fact is, people take the time to read the title of the top ad, just because it is an ad and people will spend more time deliberating before they click. People are less wary with an organic listing, so a quick glance is all that’s needed to click. Marketers can use this to their advantage to reinforce their marketing message in a top sponsored ad (often not an option with organic placement) and drive clicks to a tailored experience.

This covers the brand benefits of search for the well-known brands, the ones that jump out at you in a results set. But what if you aren’t fortunate enough to be a category killer brand? Can search still work for branding? The short answer is yes. The longer answer will have to wait until my next column.

Search Branding: A Problem of Metrics

First published November 13, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

This whole question of branding in search came about because of a rather fuzzy definition: what exactly is brand lift? How do you measure it?

This was the problem we wrestled with when we did the first search brand lift study for Google and Honda. Failing anything better, we did the standard tests of aided and unaided message and brand recall. I’m not a huge fan of these metrics, because I don’t think they adequately capture the neural basis of brand. But given the nature of the study (which included a survey and some eye tracking) it was our only feasible alternative.

What is Brand Lift?

Before I talk more about the metrics, let’s talk more about the concept of brand lift, as it’s central to the argument. What is brand lift? As measured by brand recall metrics, it’s awareness of the brand. But actually, it’s to see if a concept of the brand is lodged in working memory immediately after exposure to the brand.

So, let’s walk through this a bit. We create different search results page scenarios with variations of exposure in our test brand, including a control with no exposure. We create scenarios that set up a reasonably natural interaction and scanning of the results page. And, at some point after this interaction (usually immediately following) we ask participants if they remember seeing a brand on the results page. We start with an open-ended question (unaided) and then provide a randomized list of brands to see if they choose the test brand (aided). We then measure variance against the control, correlated with the nature of the exposure.

Given this framework, we did find brand lift. Significant brand lift. And in one aspect, this is great news for marketers. The fact that a brand remained lodged in working memory is a very big win for search in capturing consumer attention. I’m going to be talking about why this is so in the next column. If we equate brand lift with engaged attention and carving a (temporary) niche in the prefrontal cortex, the study proves there’s a strong connection with search.

Brand Lift is in the Eyes of the Beholder

But this is where the metrics get fuzzy. Brand lift seems to be many things to many people. This is why ARF decided that we needed a new metric and started down the road of defining engagement. But the problems that soon plagued this endeavor highlighted the inherent challenge. Our engagement with brands is not a one-size-fits-all, measurable occurrence. Brand relationships, like all relationships, are complex and shifting. There are many degrees. In additional, there’s a question of modality, based on context and intent. My relationship with a brand, say Apple, can be significantly different if I’m shopping for a new laptop for work than if I’m helping my daughter with an iTunes download. Advertisers want a single, simple quantifiable number that defines our brand relationship. Such a beast doesn’t exist.

So, how do you measure lift? What is lift? Is it a temporary lodging in working memory? Is it a long-term strengthening of the synaptic connections in long-term memory? Is it firing up the limbic systems that are our emotional gatekeepers, getting a lump in our throat when we see a tearjerker ad? Is it digging out our deepest primal drives when we see attractive women hanging around guys on a golf course, implying the beer they’re carrying around (but, of course, not consuming) is the reason the women are volunteering for caddy duties (Yeah, like that takes place in the real world)?

We were asked to prove brand lift on the search page, and we did, by one metric. It’s an important metric — a vital one, in fact. But when advertisers hear brand lift, they all hear different things. The definition of brand lift seems to be in the mind of the beholder.  Ironically, I’ve been reading a book that’s taken on the impossible task of explaining quantum mechanics to me. The mind numbing problem with quantum mechanics is that the physical nature of something isn’t defined until it’s observed. Until then, it’s a probability wave. I’m suspecting the same thing might be happening with brand metrics. They don’t take shape until someone tries to define them. There are just too many variables.

A Call for Consilience

The problem with branding is that marketers don’t know what they don’t know. They have learned marketing and the art of pushing a message out, but very, very few marketers have taken the time to understand what happens on the receiving end. They know nothing about cognition, emotional tagging, the formation of memories or any other workings of the human brain. Only now, with the consilience that is beginning to happen in the academic world, are we applying neuroscience to marketing.  So, marketers are desperately trying to apply a universal metric to something that largely defies measurement, and the marketers don’t even know why it’s not working.  They’re getting numbers they can plug into the dashboards, but no one is sure if they’re indicative of what happens in the real world, or, more accurately, our neural representation of the real world.

The Brand Effect on the Search Results Page

First published October 30, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Last week, I walked through an interaction with the search page step by step and looked cognitive engagement with the page. To understand the nature of branding on the search page, you first have to understand how we interact with brand messaging on the page.

Quick to Click

We left off last week as we picked up enough information scent on the page to encourage us to click on the listing. It’s important to understand that this is not a rigorous appraisal of relevance. The amount of deliberation is directly related to the amount of risk involved in a click through, determined by as much time will we have to invest should we click through. The amount of time we invest in deliberation on the search page is telling. In most search interactions we’ve recorded in our lab, average time to first click is around 10 to 12 seconds, during which most people scan 4 to 5 listings. That amounts to 2 to 3 seconds per listing. Once the click-through happens, deliberation is almost as limited on the landing page; 10 to 14 seconds is spent determining if information scent is sufficiently present to stick with the page. If not, we’re clicking the back button and heading back to the results page.

I tally up these times to make a point: we don’t spend a lot of time interacting with search messages. This is spot scanning at best, not a thorough assessment. We don’t read listings, we glance at words. When enough hits register to establish relevancy matches with the goal of our search, based on the words we used in the query and those that remain locked up in our prefrontal cortex, we click.

Fruit Foraging

Let’s go back to the foraging analogy, because it helps establish the mindset we’re dealing with. You’re looking for oranges and walk into a mall with 20 different storefronts opening off the main entrance. Each storefront has signage in front with a brief description of the items they carry. Most appear to offer oranges. However, you don’t want to spend the rest of your day going from store to store looking for the perfect bag of oranges. So, you’re going to use the clues you pick up on the store signs to pick your best bet. A produce store is a better match than a convenience store, which is a better match than a clothing store which for some reason says oranges on their sign (perhaps it’s the color of their Fall line). Your goal is to pick up the best oranges in the least amount of time. The process you would use to narrow your store selection is similar to the one you use every day with a search engine.

Now, let’s look at the part brand plays in this same analogy. You’re looking for oranges, but you’re using related concepts to help you narrow down your choice. A store that appears to offer a variety of fruits has stronger scent. A store that has a sale on oranges today might offer even stronger scent. And a store that offers Sunkist oranges might offer even stronger scent, if you happen to like the Sunkist brand.

Brand Connections, Not Emotions

That’s the role brand plays on the search results page. It’s a critical role, but it’s significantly different than the brand-building role many are trying to carve out for search. Search doesn’t build brand, search connects people to brands at just the right time.

Brands work because they represent something. In fact, studies show that successful brands actually act as a proxy for reward in the brain. They fire the same dopamine-producing neurons in the reward center that the actual product would, if you possessed it. The brain transfers the pleasure of the product to the brand, where it acts as a convenient label. If you have a favorable opinion of a brand and you see that brand in the search results, your working memory pulls that brand belief out of storage and brings it into focus in the prefrontal cortex.

But, as we’ve learned, brands become powerful influencers if they’re tagged with the power of emotion. That’s classic brand-building. As I’ve gone over at length in this series, there are a number of ways those brand beliefs can be built, including personal experience, the opinions of others and yes, even advertising. But I stand by my belief that emotional brand-building doesn’t happen on the search page. The nature of the interaction simply isn’t conducive to it. This does nothing to negate the importance of brand on the search page, as I’ll talk about in future columns. In fact, the appearance of brand on the results page is critical. But an emotional brand bonding moment it’s not.

So, with my own company responsible for a number of search brand lift studies, am I refuting my own evidence? Not at all. It just requires a clearer definition of brand lift and a little knowledge of the ways we measure it. I’ll deal with both next week.

Branding, The Mind and Search

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately exploring the area of branding on the search page. This was one of the columns that started it all.  Check out the comments on the original. – G.

In my last column, I opened up the search “branding” can of worms regarding unclicked search ads and generated a fascinating discussion with Gian Fulgoni and James Lamberti from comScore, as well as Aaron Goldman from Resolution Media, who has unpublished research that sheds new light on the subject and counters my argument. I think it’s fair to say that the value of an unclicked search ad still needs further research to resolve the question.

If it proves that there is brand lift created, then the question of pricing models currently used comes back into play. As Lamberti mentioned, perhaps the problem is not the pricing model but the measurement methods. And, as Jonathon Mendez from Ramp Digital added, “Is Google leaving lots of money on the table? They’re the most insanely profitable company of our time — I think they know what they’re doing.”

How Much Value is There in Search?

Could it be that we’re all right? Could it be that there’s so much value in the search interaction that Google can be leaving money on the table and still be insanely profitable? I do believe that in the case of branding impact, there is a distinct difference in the nature of the impact of the search ad from almost any other form of advertising, which is the topic of this column.

As I said a few columns back, search is more than a channel. It’s a fundamental human activity, and the same things that may be working against search in an implicit engagement way are very much working for search in an explicit way. The nature of our engagement with search is much different from other advertising.

Daring to Define Engagement

The Advertising Research Foundation has been struggling with defining engagement as a cross-channel effectiveness metric for years now, without making much headway. The problem is that engagement with a TV ad is a totally different proposition than engagement with a search ad.

Let’s look first at TV. In the 1980’s, the ARF conducted a major research study called the Copy Research Validation Project (as referenced in “The Advertised Mind,” by Erik Du Plessis). The purpose of the study was to isolate the factors that were common in successful ads. What was the one factor most predictive of success, which was actually thrown in as an after-thought? Whether people liked the ad.

Before most ads can work, they have to get our attention. And we pay more attention to things we like. This led to a hyper-creative explosion in the advertising biz, as agencies churned out ads designed first and foremost to make us like them. Unfortunately, most ads forgot that once you get someone’s attention, you also have to sell something. And that can be a difficult balance to maintain. Our cues to switch selective perception to something that captures our attention and our natural defenses against unsolicited persuasion usually work counter to each other. And it’s in that dynamic abyss that 250 billion dollars of advertising — in the U.S alone — gets poured every year,.

Search: Likability is Not a Prerequisite

But search is different. You don’t need to like a search ad, because it doesn’t have to capture your attention. You’ve already volunteered that attention. Search is used to gather information about an upcoming purchase. You’re fully engaged. You’re focusing on it. There are no cognitive guards on duty, protecting you from unscrupulous persuasion.

There’s another difference. Other advertising interrupts you when you have no intention of considering purchasing the featured product or service. Search reaches you just at the time you’re most fully engaged in consideration. And there lies the tremendous value of search, as it opens the door to the most engaging interaction with a brand that there can be: the online visit.

The Most Effective Engagement Point

Once consumers have knocked on your door through search, you have a tremendous opportunity to engage them. They have expressed interest, they are actively and fully engaged, they’re looking for information and they are ready to be persuaded. In the universe of consumer motivation, all the planets are perfectly aligned. You simply cannot find a better touch point with a consumer than this.

But the key is, you have to let consumers drive that interaction. They may simply be looking for rational purchase validation information, they may be researching alternatives, or they may be looking to be emotionally persuaded. A Web site can do any and all of the above, but it has to be at the visitor’s imperative.

Do I think there’s tremendous brand value left on the table with search? Absolutely. And as James Lamberti from comScore said, uncovering that value lies first in better measurement. If we can prove the value, whether it’s implicit or explicit, that may indeed lead to a different pricing model. Let’s face it; we’re a long way from understanding online consumer behavior. As we gain more understanding, expect changes. Expect lots of them.