Does a Brand Creative idea help SEO?
It is an interesting debate. It started when one of the rules of good brand building (to build ownership of language by creating a unique way for brands to describe products, services and solutions) came in to direct conflict with the SEO principle that the opportunity lies within the searchers language.
This is great for the existing established brand and is a good measure of brand equity. For example vastly more people search “eBay” than “online auction” and more people search “Skype” than “VoIP”. But for brands that are emerging and even for the development of new brand concepts the thought of building a brand “through the line” and not putting a target’s search language at the core is missing a huge opportunity.
However, in the traditions of good advertising if you spend enough on media and that your idea sparks imagination and engagement with your customers, then the market will adopt your language and this will lead to strong SEO benefits.
There are undoubtedly many good examples, but here is one.
Brands in The Insurance Market
In the insurance market comparison sites can offer brands good referring traffic but at the same time they compete in search engines for the acquisition of the searcher and positions.
Chart 1 – Here we can see a range of comparison sites, brand sites and product sites positions in Google over a 4 month period on the search term “Home Insurance” in 2009. There are some good performers but on the whole the category is very volatile and competitive. We see Halifax drop from a page one position to page 5 in just one day, a massive drop, and we see Aviva emerge successfully to take over where Norwich Union left off (good redirecting work).
Chart 2 – Here we see an interesting tussle between www.confused.com and www.comparethemarket.com over a 9 month period with both site getting to page one.
So while the dog fights continued with each site competing for position on the core category terms www.comparethemarket.com is working on a creative idea that has nothing to do with Insurance language. “Compare the Meerkat”.
Chart 2 – This Google Insights chart illustrates how during the “compare the Meerkat” advertising campaign search popularity on the term “compare the meerkat” was equal to that of “home insurance”.
While the market is competing for the share of 10 page-one positions on “home insurance”. www.comparethemarket.com enjoy 100% real estate on page one for an equally competitive term.
In this case the old brand principles have resulted in a definable, unique and all encompassing SEO performance. – Simples.
Tags: compare the market, compare the meerkat seo, halifax seo, home insurance seo, insurance seo
June 10th, 2010 at 11:28 am
I guess the question is how much value do searches for “compare the meerkat” have compared to “home insurance”. How many people who search “compare the meerkat” are just wanting to watch the meerkat video rather than compare insurance products. Maybe I’m missing the point though – if people are actively seeking out the advert video this can’t be a bad thing for the brand.
June 10th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Andrew,
Never underestimate the power of the brand experience. Building brand equity in this way helps support the buying decision process offline as well as online. Doing the ROI modeling on SEO and brand equity is certainly a harder game and would in most cases lead to “over analysis paralysis”.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Andrew – it’s not a bad thing for the category either. That meerkat is now synonymous to the home insurance market. It’s interesting to see that the initial rise in the sector occured for both search terms at the same time.
It really can’t be a bad thing for the whole sector that People are winning big fluffy Meerkats in smoking jackets on Brighton pier. It’s interesting to see a relatively boring industry being given life with such a campaign. Next stop Double Glazing.