Yahoo's Searchlight awards returned to New York last week celebrating the precious few who have learned to make the connection between search and brand advertising. Only a few short years ago the very suggestion of using search as anything more than a direct response vehicle was regarded as little short of lunacy.
Search terms are often a wild card for brands, but no more wild than attempting to manage perception of the brand via blog entries and the plethora of other user-generated content available for consumption on the web.
Finalists in the second annual Yahoo Search Light Awards included, NeoSearch for the Sprint/Talladega Nights campaign, Leo Burnett's Special K, Team One and the all- new Lexus LS and Avenue A | Razorfish's Choose Chase initiative.
So why did the winner win, why did the finalists make it, and what can you take back to the office?
And the winner was…
Avenue A | Razorfish was the popular choice from the audience with its "Your Choice, Your Chase" campaign. (For the unindoctrinated, Search Light Award winners are selected by audience members so if you do make it to the finals next year, make sure not to come alone.)
Perhaps the Chase campaign won because Avenue A appeared to be the only agency that found search to be an integral part of the campaign. Search increased awareness by positioning (note: positioning, not buying clicks) against terms that might generate awareness.
The goal of this campaign was increase awareness that by its very nature would generate a higher sales volume, and it is next to impossible to garner positions without click activity. They pulled it off, and to me that's worth a big purple Searchlight trophy in the lobby.
The runner up
Of all the runners up, the campaign for Lexus LS 460 hit me hardest. The creative was astounding. Repurposing television creative for the web was a most excellent way to aid awareness of the new vehicle -- the car that parks itself -- and taking over the Yahoo home page with a mega budget was certainly innovative. Or maybe it was innovative in 1999.
Competition for this award was tough. The Searchlight Award was designed to recognize marketers who use search advertising in unique ways, and many of the delivery tactics we saw with runners up are now commonplace or can easily be accomplished with an astonishingly large budget.
In order to be truly creative, one has to use tactics that others have missed. Lexus received an enormous amount of buzz when the product launched. One of the depicted buzz factors was a reel with press mentions that included a Rosie O'Donnell mention on The View.
The Lexus campaign may have had a better shot at winning if, instead of showing just the buzz reel, a depiction of account teams frantically adding new keywords after every press mention each day was shown. Like I said, competition was stiff.
Take this home
Reading about how other marketers have begun to use search is a beautiful thing. Many tactics that were once outlandish have become commonplace for search and brand marketing.
Microsites specifically designed for search campaigns are being used to capture the mind of audiences. The extension of search impression to an awareness metric is now an acceptable practice. Keywords that have little or no connection to the direct purchase process are now a key element to the success of brand search initiative.
I predict that next year's Searchlight will go to the brand that successfully incorporates user-generated content into the success of the campaign. That is, engaging the search practice with content designed by anyone other than an agency or brand (such as the Special K community site the audience saw this year) with a whole new definition of health and well being will provide the next level of creativity in execution for search and the brand.
Stop whining and start marketing
Or else. Watching the awards, to me the most refreshing thing I saw was a ubiquitous buy in on beyond-the-click metrics for search. Beyond the click: heavens, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that since 1999...
I should point out that the last 600 words or so was not intended to be a tirade against the agencies, brands or Yahoo. Quite the contrary.
Anyone who does anything the first time is subject to the scrutiny of every Monday morning quarterback in the business. In today's search marketing world, keyword costs are on the rise, the marketplace is getting more and more crowded and marketers are looking for ways to expand search marketing programs while keeping return goals in check.
If you can somehow manage to pull that off, it doesn't matter if you have a big purple light in the lobby: you have already won.
iMedia Search Editor Kevin M. Ryan is the CEO of Kinetic Results. Read full bio.
