Marketing Digital Report: Search - Just what brands are looking for

they are demanding more from search results.

Given the sheer volume and range of information available online, users
are looking for more help, and search engines have been launching a
succession of next-generation tools to refine searches.

Results can now be organised using a vast array of user-defined
parameters, including their geographical location, the type of result
they are seeking (such as text, images or video) and the nature of their
search (shopping, research, job hunting or blogging, for example).
Search engines are also making their services available on multiple
platforms, so users can access them whenever and wherever they
choose.

Google has unveiled plans to expand its portfolio with the launch of an
offline web browser called Google Gears, offering users remote access
from inaccessible locations including planes and trains. Gears will be a
free service and available to other companies as open-source software,
allowing other developers to add to and integrate the software in their
own products.

While advertisers tend to concentrate on the 'big four' search engines,
many new services have entered the market recently, usually on the back
of a technological innovation. Hakia and Powerset, for example, try to
understand the full meaning of a user's enquiry, most commonly by
analysing the use of conjunctions such as 'about', 'of' and 'in'.

Other engines focus their search on a particular vertical segment of the
market. SimplyHired, for example, tailors its answers specifically to
job-seekers. Other services limit their search scope to certain types of
content: Technorati scans blogs, while Topix specialises in news.

Social search is a growing phenomenon. Yahoo! Answers has 90m members
who pose and answer questions on a variety of subjects, drawing on
collective knowledge (see case study). Yahoo!'s vice-president of
Northern Europe, Glen Drury, describes it as one of the company's
biggest and most important pushes into next-generation search. 'Only 15%
of the world's knowledge is on a web page,' he says. 'Yahoo! Answers
enables people to put their knowledge online, which is compelling for
advertisers, as it allows them to experiment in the social media world
in a fairly safe place.'

Image search has become second nature over the past few years, and
continues to evolve, with Latitude's search director, Jon Myers, citing
the possibilities of Microsoft's Photosynth. This can reconstruct photos
in 3-D, and could potentially offer services such as personalised
directions based on a photo taken on a mobile. But all eyes are now on
the remarkable growth of video search. Many commentators predict that
when PCs and TVs fully converge, video search services will become
essential to consumers accessing broadcast content.

One promising newcomer in this arena is Blinkx, which has high hopes of
emulating Google's success and becoming the gateway to video search.
'Video consumption will overtake text consumption online because
broadcast is an emotive medium that is easy to consume,' says chief
executive Suranga Chandratillake. Blinkx sees its main competitors as
AOL and Yahoo!, both of which have video search facilities, but not
Google, which focuses more on video hosting, especially since its
YouTube acquisition.

Chandratillake believes video search is particularly exciting because it
enables brands to measure the success of their TV advertising. 'The
problem with a TV ad has always been that it's a bit uncontrollable. You
didn't know how many people actually watched it and when. Now you do,'
he says.

Duncan Parry, director of strategy at Steak Media, believes that all
these search developments are good news for advertisers. 'They will be
able to target not just people searching for the right keywords, but
also those in the right location, right demographic or with the right
interests for a product,' he says. 'Targeting is the foundation on which
the success of search is built, and improving it can be only good for
advertisers.'

There is also a trend toward engines integrating the different search
elements into a single results page. Google has unveiled its plan to
include video, news, books, maps and images in the results of a standard
search enquiry, and Ask.com is set to launch a similar service soon.

This wave of integration is being aimed at advertisers as well as
consumers. Last month, Yahoo! announced plans to improve its ad
platform, rebranding it Panama. The changes are intended to make the
service easier to use, and give advertisers more feedback on campaigns
running across all Yahoo! properties.

Last year MSN took a similar step, revamping its adCenter advertising
platform with new tools to make measurement and analysis easier. It also
built a demographic targeting tool. 'We tried to come up with an extra
USP that would differentiate us,' says Mel Carson, community manager for
MSN's European advertising platform.

Two of MSN's best-known services - Hotmail, which has been running for
10 years, and instant-messaging service Messenger - require users to
sign in with their 'Passport' details, which include age and gender.
'This means that when users are searching, we have a good handle on
their demographic, which in turn means we can let advertisers
incrementally target the right customers,' explains Carson.

Digital agencies such as TBG report better returns from using this
demographic tool than any other search innovation. But advertisers
continue to focus on Google due to the high volume of traffic it can
deliver. 'Advertisers will want to use these enhanced tools, but the
most successful search engines will be those that give their users what
they want, when they want it, not the ones that offer the best
advertising platform,' says TBG head of corporate development Kenneth
Lillie. 'Google has the user experience in its blood. The only way I can
see its dominance waning is if users get bored of it.'

CASE STUDY - The AA and Yahoo! Answers

When the AA decided to experiment with social media, it wanted a safe
place to start its tests. It opted for Yahoo! Answers.

The service offers communities in more than 20 different categories. The
AA chose to be a 'knowledge partner' in the cars and transport channel.
This gave it the right to ask one featured question a day, but it was
also expected to answer members' questions when the subject matter was
relevant to its expertise. Consequently, the AA signed up one of its
motoring experts to the community site, complete with photo and profile.
He then monitored the questions and, when appropriate, advised
members.

'This is not like a traditional sponsorship because it's not about
advertising. We liked it because it's a subtle way of displaying our
expertise,' says Steve Jay, e-business manager at the AA. 'As well as
demonstrating our knowledge, it leaves members with a warm feeling about
the brand.' Jay admits that it is hard to measure this 'warm feeling';
typically he would gauge the success of the campaign by analysing how
many questions the AA had answered, as well as the quality ratings users
had given the responses.

He adds that the AA has seen interesting search patterns among users
after a motoring question has been answered. 'We can see that it is
having an effect on consideration of the AA, with real positive effects
on the bottom line,' he says.

Glen Drury, vice-president of Northern Europe at Yahoo!, argues that
advertiser involvement in this environment is welcomed because brands
are providing a useful, relevant service rather than imposing themselves
on the community. Social media present opportunities for brands to get
closer to customers, but he warns that this approach requires them to
'engage in dialogue, not monologue'.