Thursday, March 31, 2011

Ad Industry Execs: Google’s +1 Could Hold Us More Accountable

Is Google’s +1 feature likely to be an online ad industry game changer?
Ad experts were split on whether Google’s new recommendation system will catch on, but if it does, it’s likely to further an existing move toward marketing transparency.

Voicing the most pessimistic view on +1 was David Hallerman, a senior analyst at eMarketer. He notes that search is more a utility than a social activity, making recommendations an odd fit. “It’s not a medium where people spend time,” Hallerman says. “It’s a tool that people use.”

But as DeepFocus CEO Ian Schafer suggests, +1 could make search more social, changing behaviors in the process. “When someone is searching for a piece of information about a product, a review, or insightful commentary, it is typically a very insular activity,” says Schafer. “But being able to place a ‘seal of approval’ next to a search result may have the effect of making a typically insular activity more collaborative -– hopefully improving the ‘algorithm’ through the quality of your connections.”

Alisa Leonard, director of strategy and planning at iCrossing, expressed doubt that people on Google Contacts were as influential as Facebook friends. “In Facebook, my social graph is highly qualified and much more intimate,” she says. “On Google, my contacts may be less intimate and less qualified.”

If +1 gains currency, however, there’s a strong possibility that marketers will begin trying to collect +1s the way they currently try to accumulate Facebook likes. “It encourages that kind of behavior — the gamification of marketing,” says Josh Rose, executive vice president and digital creative director of ad agency Deutsch LA. “This will definitely play into those hands.”

On the other hand, +1s are likely to provide another advertising metric, and that could have some value. “It will definitely be interesting to see if ads with a lot of +1s perform better,” Rose says.

If +1s aren’t gamed too much, Rose and others see the new recommendation aspect of search as a positive force, holding brands and their advertising more accountable. Leonard points out that if the +1s contribute to a marketer’s Quality Score, they will pay less for advertising than others with lower scores, giving consumers a new way to, in effect, vote on a brand. A large number of +1s could raise expectations about a product, Leonard says.
[via mashable]

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