Close But No Cigar for Venturian Media at the Buy.at Affiliate Football Tournament

As the sun rose over a quiet corner of East London, honest campaigners from across the country were applying dubbin and saying their prayers before embarking on the annual holy pilgrimage to the hallowed turf of the Buy.at Affiliate Football Tournament.

Differing body shapes, fitness levels and footballing skills were banded together in the name of office brotherhood, with 14 teams vying for the crown which Venturian Media comfortably won in 2007. Unfortunately for us this season’s tournament saw teams enter who looked like they could actually play football, as opposed to just looking like one on legs so we knew it would be an altogether tougher proposition to retain the title!

The sun washed over the field of battle, with teams forced to call on every last ounce of gladiatorial courage and skill necessary to triumph in the heat of the unflinching conflict to unfold. The crowd were soon baying for blood and search engine optimization (not necessarily in that order) after being whipped into a heaving mass of Magners and breathless enthusiasm by the pom-pom wielding cheerleaders.

After the captains were thoroughly pumped in the debriefing room, teams were allocated their tiny arenas of torture, where for the next 3 hours they would try and outwit, nutmeg and smash each other into submission via the wooden hoardings and well placed elbows. Current champions Venturian Media struggled through the “Group of Death” after winning two matches comfortably, whilst also losing two matches uncomfortably! Last years finalists Buy.at also looked in good nick with the tournaments largest squad, whilst The Telegraph appeared to have a team of actual footballers as apposed to affiliates. Not looking quite so good were the bright orange budget price shirted CKNet, led by Rob ‘rugby tackle’ Beresford.

The draw for the quarters saw last years finalist Buy.at and Venturian Media thrown together again, a mouth watering prospect for the expectant crowd. Last years final turned into quite a tasty affair, but with Browny now plying his trade at Brilliant Mediaand Venturian Media’s Hulk Hogan now starring in his own MTV series, the fireworks that were expected were never properly lit.

With stakes high the atmosphere was cranked up a notch by the baying mob on the sidelines, who not only shook their pom-pom’s with fury, but also spewed vicious anti Venturian Media songs (something along the lines of “you’re not very good, cha cha cha”). Luckily for the local constabulary, Venturian Media went about their business with the utmost professionalism and ran out 3-0 winners to subdue the possible riot waiting to happen. This defeat was also seen as a great moral victory for Buy.at, who lost last years tight knit meeting of the teams 6-0.

The semi finals saw 3 teams from the ‘group of death’ qualify; meaning Venturian Media had to face comfortable group victors AOL again. This passionate affair was all about grit and determination, with both teams going for the jugular from the first to last whistle. Challenges were flying in, though all fair and above board, and both keepers had plenty of work to do. In the end, Venturian Media veteran tea maker and footballing stalwart Ali McDermott stepped out of defence to roll back the years with 2 classic strikes, putting AOL to the sword and setting up a final with the impressive team from the Telegraph.

A very dishevelled looking Venturian Media team limped onto the field with defence in mind against a surprisingly fresh looking Telegraph team. This plan was ended abruptly after the referee awarded a dubious twice taken free kick to allow the Telegraph to take the lead. This led to a war of words with the official, ending with goalkeeper and office dogsbody Stuart McDermott being sent from the field of play. Silly scenes from the youngster – maybe he should have waited til we got knocked out before he started drinking?!

The 4 man Venturian Media defensive “Wall” crumbled like its Berlin counterpart, with the Telegraph adding 3 more goals in a game as one sided as last years final. Thankfully the bar was fully stocked and ready to rock to ease everyone’s aches and sprains into the evening’s festivities. These included the heavy consumption of blue drinks, people handing in their notice and then retracting it, and the obligatory hiding of food in people’s shoes.

Full marks once again to Laura and the team ar Buy.at for arranging such a well organised football tournament, and thanks to Christian and Ben from DGM for helping to get us to the final and also for filling in for the ridiculously unfit Neil!

The Free Branding Benefits Via Complementary Search

A recent study commissioned by Google and undertaken by Enquiro Research and Ipsos Mori in the UK has indicated that advertisers can expect a boost in brand recall over their competitors by as much as 76% when they appear prominently in both paid and organic search results. Brand awareness can be as much as 30% higher and relative brand affinity up to 17% greater.

Obviously Google have a vested interest given that they are seeking to promote search as a viable brand channel in order to attract more of the lucrative brand budgets from FMCG and luxury goods advertisers but even sceptics must agree that the evidence is pretty compelling. Similar Google commissioned studies in France and Germany have also mirrored these results giving weight to the argument that saturation of the SERPS brings quantifiable branding benefits.

As specialists in performance based search marketing we are often asked by our network partners to provide proposals to their advertisers as to how we can demonstrate additional value above and beyond the incremental sales delivered through our complementary SEM.  Obviously each advertiser is different and there are many factors which will influence our suggested strategy but one benefit which we always try to highlight is the additional branding that complementary ads give.

These studies raise the important question as to how much greater the brand awareness, recall and affinity for advertisers who not only have representation through organic and / or paid listings but also work with affiliates such as ourselves to co-ordinate and saturate the search space.  Equally, many advertisers will often not have a dual presence in both organic and paid results and sometimes neither on key generic search terms. This means that affiliates who provide them with complementary branded ads with dedicated exposure in ad copy make the branding benefits to the advertiser especially relevant and important.
Complementary search activity from affiliates who are presently rewarded only on direct response actions is currently a free means for advertisers to increase their overall exposure in the SERP’s and reinforce their brand and product proposition. Additionally, organic listings are less easy to manipulate to ensure the desired brand message or product is being advertised effectively with relevant copy and a strong call to action making complementary paid ads an even more powerful tool for communication and branding due to the greater degree of control over accuracy and prominence.

It would be really interesting to see the results of a similar study which looks as the effect of multiple paid search listings for a single brand both in conjunction with organic listings or without. If Google would like to fund the study we’d be happy to oblige!