In a 10/25 Search Insider article: "Search and The Digital CPG Shelf", Gord Hotchkiss covers off on a research project he did with comScore and Proctor & Gamble called "The Digital Shelf" http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1835. I thought the project was pretty interesting; in a nutshell, the study was run to tie online activity to offline purchase behavior, and determine whether or not search marketing was vital for brand building and driving offline sales for a category not typically tied with search (in this case Consumer Packaged Goods).

Interestingly enough, Hotchkiss finds:

"People went online for CPG information -- in fact, to a significantly higher degree than even our most optimistic predictions. Over a 3-month period, comScore recorded over 150 million visits to CPG websites in four categories: Food Products, Personal Care Products, Baby Products and Household Products. Those are numbers no marketer should ignore. But even more significantly, search drove significant portions of that traffic, from 23% of all visits in Household Products to 60% in Baby Products... It's not just automotive or travel that drive search traffic. We search for recipes, how to get the stains out of carpets, the most eco-friendly disposable diaper and yes, even the nutritional information for potato chips. We search, a lot!"

In the article, Hotchkiss seems blown away that people are searching for these things (primarily to compare against competitors). Although a bit surprised about the Food & Household products (I actually ran a campaign for a particular food & beverage product - I too was surprised at how many people searched on the brand), I'm not as surprised about the others. I've found myself researching personal care products from time to time, and I'm at the age where many of my friends are starting to have babies; most who, in their spare time, are surfing baby sites - researching the best products, etc. to use for their little one (or soon to be).

Hotchkiss closed the article asking why these companies are not investing more branding dollars in search. I guess that’s another project to dig into ;)

Labels: branding, consumer packaged goods, search engine marketing, search insider