Thursday, August 9, 2007

Google a planning tool? But of course

This story in Adweek seems a bit skeptical about Google's assertion that it is a planning tool, but that's what Google exec Perry Price said yesterday at the 4A's Planning Conference in San Diego. Price points out that, for instance, "box office grosses could be accurately predicted 82 percent of the time as far as six weeks before a movie opening" by tracking search activity. A few years back, I went to a big search conference where I had a lengthy conversation with an executive from a major CPG company about what advertisers can learn from search—he pointed out how much potential there was in simply discovering what words people use to search for products. Clients may still love holding focus groups and so forth, but it seems like it would be a little crazy not to think of search as a planning tool.

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