Just Add Words #Squared2012

In the wonderful world of search, brands which are investing in Google Adwords are facing an endless battle to make sure their brand comes up trumps when a consumer types in a related search query. The concept of Adwords can seem amazingly complex but can be understood through simplified definitions as reiterated by Einstein ‘Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler’.

I managed to have my own experience in setting up an Adwords campaign in order to increase traffic to a website, if you are reading this now, it has probably worked. These adverts appear either above the natural search results or down the right hand side. The whole concept of Adwords is that you produce an advert (be it text, picture or video) and bid on keywords which you think the consumer will type in when looking for your product, with the aim to get as high up in the search results as possible.

Google Adwords Campaign main screen
(Before any clicks)

A brand wishing to invest in a search campaign has to consider who they are trying to connect to, how they are going to communicate their message and how they are going to convert them. A brand has to fully lay out their marketing objectives before starting the process.The best thing about Google Adwords is that it is real-time - brands can monitor and optimise when things are working/not working and quickly react to external affects which maybe affecting searches for their product. Each campaign will be totally different from the next as product, budget and time are great influencers in the process of the campaign.

How Adwords Adverts appear on the page

However, it is not as simple as bidding on keywords and then suddenly your brand is on the top - there is a science behind it. The most important aspect is the quality score - this is a score that Google places on your website which will determine where you sit in the pecking order of sites. The quality score is essentially how Google make their money and it's what keeps their consumers using them as their primary search engine. There are 3 fundamental things which influence the quality score, these are the CTR, relevancy and landing page. The CTR is one of the most contributing factors to the quality score as it directly relates to the queries, keyword and the creative. 
The higher your CTR, will reflect on how relevant you are which will contribute to your quality score. Moreover, the landing page where you are sending consumers to has to be as relevant as the advert itself. It is a massive Google NO NO to use a fake and alluring advert to then send them to a completely irrelevant website. Therefore Google not only monitor the advert the consumers are clicking on, but also where you are sending them.

A good quality score affects your eligibility (whether your ad is eligible for the query), the position (how relevant is your ad related to the query?), the price (better quality score reduces the price) and the top slot (only quality ads are eligible to appear above the natural search results).

The quality score essentially is the money-maker for Google, so it is very hard to get to the top - many people who work in search strive for the highest possible quality score - but sometimes you have to accept the score you have even if you have done everything right and by the book.

So, how do Google make their money out of the quality score? Well, the more relevant the ad, the more the user experience is enhanced and therefore keeps consumers coming back. If the ads are more relevant and appropriate to your query, the more likely you are to click on the ad, thus making google money. The quality score helps eradicate spam as it is useless to the user and might stop them from using the engine. Imagine if you typed in a search for toothbrushes and you got bombarded with irrelevant spam that had nothing to do with toothbrushes? Useless, right? The fact that google also monitors the landing page, further ensures the relevancy of the search results.

So why would you use adwords search as part of your integrated advertising campaign? You are targeting your consumers when they are actively looking for you. You only pay when you get people clicking on your advert. Simple. If you want to see an absolute kick-ass search campaign, where the benefits of search are hugely exemplified, check out Converse Domainaition.  

Lesson 16: Quality scores are what make Google Adwords interesting

What exactly is Brand Awareness?

If there is one term you will hear again and again in the media industry, it's 'Brand Awareness' - but what does this actually mean? The term is so flippant and used so casually that I begin to forget what it actually is. Media owners are always the first to say that their medium will create 'high brand awareness' and it's almost as if upon hearing this, advertisers are meant to jump out of our seats and book them right there and then. Brand awareness, to me, is almost now a selling terminology which is not always used at the right moment and in the right context - at least people don't explain it properly, I mean what metrics are people using?


Brand awareness is essentially a marketing concept, used to represent how many consumers are aware of a brand - it's metrics are usually referred to as 'high' or 'low', but what exactly is high brand awareness? It is usually measured through surveys by way of brand recall, brand recognition and top of mind awareness. Looking more closely at these metrics; Brand recognition is when the brand and brand category are presented to the consumer and they say if they are aware of them or not; Brand recall is when only the product category is given to the consumer, who then lists all the brands they know within that category and Top of Mind Awareness which is done in the same way as Brand Recall but only the first brand answer is recorded (spontaneous brand recall).


Research has suggested that there is lack of consistency and stability in consumer responses, as their responses can be very attitudinal with lots of external factors affecting their choices. For example, people may recall your brand as you have a campaign running at that moment, but might forget as soon as it finishes. However, if most people say your brand(depending on how many people you ask, of course), even if its not 100% consistent - that is still high brand awareness right? I suppose the very best position for companies to be in, is 100% of all consumers in the world are recalling their brand unaided, both pre and post campaign.


However, what exactly do you do with this information? I suppose high brand awareness becomes an asset which needs to be maintained. The level of a brands consumer awareness is always taken into consideration when planning marketing campaigns and coming up with the idea for the creative. In terms of brand awareness, questions we ask ourselves are; how well do people know it? Can we afford to be more risky with the creative? Do we need to let more people know about the brand? Do people know about the brand but not buying the product/service? What is the level of their brand awareness relative to other similar products/service within the category? This basically allows brands to place ourselves against the competition and form a strategy based on consumers awareness, consumers attitudes and perceptions of the brand in order to change a certain type of behaviour.


Lesson 15: Challenge the next media owner who claims that their communication medium gives 'high brand awareness' - I would like to know exactly how they go about proving this and why they are better than the next.




Laurent, Gilles, Jean-Noel Kapferer, and Francoise Roussel (1995), "The Underlying Structure of Brand Awareness Scores," Marketing Science
Day, George S. and Robert W. Pratt (1971), "Stability of Appliance Brand Awareness," Journal of Marketing Research, 8 (February)
Dall'Olmo Riley, F., A.S.C. Ehrenberg, S.B. Castleberry, T.P. Barwise, and N.R. Barnard (1997), "The Variability of Attitudinal Repeat-Rates," International Journal of Research in Marketing

A try for Rugby Sponsorship

I am doing a presentation at work on Rugby sponsorship which I wanted to share my thoughts on. Just to give some context around rugby sponsorship; the Rugby Union Association was founded in 1871 and as the sport became more popular for both playing and spectating, it went professional in 1995 (compared to Football which went professional in the 1800s). This attracted a lot of brands to the forecourt, as sport sponsorship was not a new concept and this introduction of a new and popular game allowed brands a new source of sponsorship revenue.Tetley's was the first brand to nationally sponsor the game as rugby sponsorship became the ground for many alcoholic drink brands, mainly larger/ales/beer etc. At the time rugby sponsorship was very much new territory, however, 17 years later after it went professional a total of 80% of sponsorship goes on sports, with the Rugby World Cup being arguably the 3rd most popular and viewed sporting competition in the world. 

Sponsorship has developed so much more than a t-shirt badging exercise, where advertisers now activate the sponsorship through making brands engage with their consumers in a helpful and entertaining way - it is all about creating an experience around the brand and the game. 

So what is so attractive about Rugby Sponsorship for brands? It firstly taps into an audience which are usually hard to target, rugby reaches a wide affluent audience - 63% of which are ABC1, compared to the 55% in Football.  It is an emotional sport, you get fans when they are at their most engaged and arguably their most receptive - allowing brands to tie in with those passionate feelings. Rugby also has a large fan base, both in-stadium and at homes around the world. Rugby fans are typically fans of the game before they are the teams – allowing for more cut-through to focus on the support of the game rather than just the teams themselves.

Rugby sponsorship can take many forms as brands can sponsor; a team (e.g O2 for England), an athlete (e.g Jonny Wilkinson for Jaguar), a tournament (e.g Heineken Cup) and a League (E.g Aviva Premiership) - based on the budget you have, the relevancy of your brands and what you want your brand to be associated with. In terms of what brands can get out of it - you get high brand awareness from putting your brand and product into the public domain, you get brand affinity - where brand names are synonomous with rugby concepts and brand association - where your brand values are represented by the values of the game, i.e rugby is seen as passionate, brave and adventurous. Additionally, it allows brands to form a deeper relationship with their existing clients, staff and potential consumers through engaging them with content specific to them. 

Sponsorship is also perfect breeding ground for some good (and bad) PR. Brand ambassadors act as a good source of PR - it gets them and others to back your brand by engaging consumers on their level. If your brand ambassador is a popular and trusted figure within society, then those values will transfer to the brand, encouraging people to buy the product/service based on those values. However, getting people/teams etc to represent your brand can be a risky business as you rely on other people to ensure the image of your brand remains  positive - the famous 'bloodgate scandal' had a rugby team member put fake blood in his mouth to encourage what would have been an illegal substitution. This caused havoc in the rugby world as pictures of his bloodied shirt, sporting the airlines brand 'Etihad', stormed press headlines. This automatically links Etihad to 'bad play' with a lot of negative PR - however, Etihad supported the club throughout and even renewed their sponsorship with them, which begs to think that maybe negative PR is not that bad after all?

Social platforms are another great way to activate a sponsorship by getting people to talk about your brand and the game. Aviva Premiership and Heineken cup have branded Twitter and Facebook pages, reaffirming brand association with the games. Social platforms are brilliant for sharing rugby content, which are usually viewed well after the games have finished. YouTube is a perfect platform for this as highlights and game plays can be accessed through brand channels or user generated videos. An example of a successful rugby video is the New Zealand and Tonga Haka which got 9.1 million views and still counting! This is a perfect environment for brands as they continue to be associated with rugby whilst obtaining lots of media value. 

O2 for the England Rugby Team is a perfect example of how sponsorships can be activated effectively by ensuring consumers have an 'experience' with the brand. O2 have; 'Priority moments' where customers can get get access to other areas, win food/drinks at the stadium, and chances to win home match tickets; 'O2 Scrum on the beach' which is an opportunity for people to go and play rugby on the beach and meet England players based on their ethos of 'making rugby accessible to everyone'; 'O2 inside line' is video content of 20 episodes to see exclusive player interviews, player cam, match analysis and predictions; 'O2 touch' is the setting-up of community clubs of touch rugby and helping local people get involved - the website allows you to find the nearest club, how the game works, when they are on, who else is doing it etc… which shows they are really trying to get people into the game. They also have 'The O2 blue room' in Twickenham stadium which is based on the mantra that the experience goes beyond just watching an 80 minute game but playing on the fact that it is a whole day-out with friends - it gives O2 customers the chance to get a free beer, pie and to meet players within the comfort of the O2 tent. This focus on consumer engagement inside and outside the stadium allows to target all rugby fans and heighten their experience with the game and the brand - the activation will help O2 associate themselves with consumers who are passionate for the game whilst trying to get others involved and enjoying it too. O2 have also just renewed their sponsorship deal which will see them into the world cup 2015, a great opportunity to really get their teeth into activating an awesome sponsorship!

Rugby Sponsorship is essentially all about creating an experience around the game using your brand as a method of communicating this. When considering sponsorship, brand values must transfer and must fit together naturally with the game, atmosphere and people - otherwise, consumers just won't understand the connection and could create a negative bounce back. Finally, sponsorship must be activated effectively and used to it's maximum potential using all resources at your disposal - otherwise, just activating a badging exercise will not only be a waste of money but a complete waste of effort as people just won't care.