Digital Hive

Search impacts brand? Whoda thunk

Snaps to my favorite yummy mummy (and connection planner extraordinaire) Laura Rollins for flagging a great new Yahoo/MediaVest study about how search impacts brand metrics - even if you don't click:

A study of more than 6,000 consumers by ComScore found that brands generated an average 160% increase in unaided awareness by being present in standard sponsored-text search results compared with when consumers weren't exposed to their search ads.

It also found that consumers were 20% more likely to have positive perceptions of brands in the top paid-search position than those in second or third positions and 30% more likely to consider purchasing a product when the brand was at the top of paid-search results.

This second piece of info is particularly provocative for me - reminds me of something I learned in general years ago, that there's something inherently alluring about being #1, thus figure out how to frame yourself as a number one brand.

For more, check out this AdAge article.

The Dr. Martens brand story - an "anchor" for youth today?

I discovered something interesting I wanted to share - the Dr. Martens brand story (from their site, in italics below; emphasis added by me). Written by Martin Roach, it puts the brand into historical context while relating it very much to today.

I'm particularly struck by the idea of the one man army - you. As well, by the idea that in the sea of information and creativity today people need anchors - and Doc Martens is trying to be one of the anchors for youth today.

When the Dr. Martens boot first catapulted from a working-class essential to a counter-cultural icon back in the 1960s, the world was pre-internet, pre-MTV, pre-CD, pre-mp3s, pre-mobile phones … hey, they’d only just invented the teenager. In the years before the boot’s birthday, 1st April, 1960, kids just looked like tribute acts to their parents, younger but the same. Rebellion was only just on the agenda for some – for most kids of the day, starved of music, fashion, art and choice, it was not even an option. But then......