Searching for hearts and minds

At a time when budgets are being hastily trimmed in areas that have supported the branding effort, interest in cost-effective mediums like search is gaining momentum. More specifically, businesses are interested in how search can be used to drive the branding process and preserve brand equity. Almost every marketer knows that search engine marketing can be a sales driver, and that its request-driven nature is possibly the best way to harvest brand traffic and consumer demand. But it’s whether search can be utilised to achieve the same kind of brand goals that TV, radio and event sponsorship can deliver that is slightly less obvious. After all, how do you use a request-driven medium to plant that seed in the first place, when it’s not even being sought? And how do you change attitudes to your brand when people aren’t curious to find out how you may suit them? In other... Read full article

Watching is down. Searching and socialising are on the up.

Audiences are on the move and marketers need to shift their focus to follow them if they want to continue growing or retaining their market share. According to recent findings by the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA), the internet is rivalling TV and outstripping print and outdoor in the consumption stakes. What’s more, this trend is even more pronounced among the young, suggesting that it’s only likely to continue. In fact, 16 to 24 year-olds access the internet more frequently than they watch TV and spend 10% more time on it than they do in front of the box. But it’s not just the younger demographic and tomorrow’s target audience that is slipping out of the living room and into the ether. It’s the older ones too. Since 2006 there’s been a 12% increase in weekly internet access among the over-55s. Overall cross-demographic internet usage is up too, with a... Read full article

Top stories Dec 2008

Yahoo! cuts search agency commission by Hannah Kimuyu The news Yahoo! will reduce the levels of UK paid search commission it gives to agencies as of 1 January 2009 begs the question: is the search engine simply responding to Google’s removal of Best Practice Funding (BPF)? While Google is removing their agency kickback scheme as of 31 December 2008, Yahoo! is only decreasing commission by 1%, seemingly not all that dramatic a move. But at Greenlight we consider it an ill-timed decision. The commission structure at Yahoo! gave advertisers a solid reason to opt for the search engine. Yahoo! has watched advertisers remove money and plough it into Google over the last six to 12 months. But we wonder if the commission cut will substantiate the trend rather than reverse it. So why make the decrease? Yahoo! sees it as part of a brand-strengthening process, which also makes the search... Read full article