Ever thought, what the heck is this ad, or that was a cool and and then jumped on your macbook and did some searching for it?
In June of 2007, the two companies teamed up to determine how exposure to offline marketing messages (like commercials and print ads) affected online searchers; specifically, they wanted to see if offline messages inspired them to perform online searches, and then to make purchases.
Doing a search online after seeing something offline, however, may involve a change of venue or moving from the couch to the computer – assuming users aren’t multitasking, sitting at the computer while watching TV for example (as we often do). In the past six months, one-third of the people surveyed about this question reportedly driven to perform searches by offline advertising messages.
This means that two-thirds of the people surveyed DID perform an internet search related to offline advertising. Of these, the most influential messages came from television (37 percent), word of mouth from friends and acquaintances (36 percent), and magazine/newspaper ads (30 percent). The finding was interesting in part because iProspect had predicted an even split; they expected half of their sample to be influenced to search from offline messages, and half to not be influenced to perform such searches.
Those who most performed searches are most likely to perform a search in response to something they see or hear offline. Fully 44 percent of daily searchers reported performing a search in response to a television ad in the last six months, while 41 percent did so in response to word of mouth from a friend or an acquaintance. In fact, daily searchers were more likely than less frequent searchers to perform a search in response to an offline advertising message through every medium iProspect asked about – television, word of mouth, magazine/newspaper ad, company’s store/physical location, radio ad, billboard, ad/company name on company truck/van/car and ad/company name on taxi/train/city bus. After all, if you’re already moving naturally from offline to online on a daily basis, you’re more likely to remember and be curious about what you’ve seen offline – and search engines are often the quickest way to satisfy a person’s curiosity.