Oohgle is the brainchild of the people at Posterscope to promote their new tool “Prisim Search”.  This tool analyses the relationship between Out of Home (& other offline) advertising and search. This allows Posterscope to measure the impact of OOH advertising on search, giving some insight to the advertiser of the potential to increase search through OOH activity and what they need to be prepared for digitally.  At the moment only Posterscope’s clients will be able to access this marvellous technology but the possibility exists that in years to come it may be made more widely available.

Is the Oohgle ad campaign effective after just one week?  A quick trip to Google Trends shows this impressive graph - http://www.google.com/trends?q=oohgle&ctab=454940304&geo=GB&geor=all&date=2008 While it isn’t accurate by date as this ad campaign went live only a week ago, it does clearly show a spike in searches for this term.  Out of home (OOH) advertising clearly does drive online search activity, especially when it captures a searchers imagination or curiosity.

Initially targeting commuters, this advertising campaign has another three weeks to run and will undoubtedly attract a lot of interest for both the product behind it and the company itself.  Since “Prism Search” uses complex statistics - linear regression - to explain the variation in levels of daily search in terms of the variation in daily media levels, it is sure to bring benefit to Posterscope customers and it also has elevated the importance of on and offline advertising integration to a larger audience.

All too often online is the last consideration of traditional marketers since TV still has the most significant reach.  More money is currently being spent on TV advertising however according to figures analysed by Enders Analysis this is due to change about now.  With such a significant swing in advertising spend, TV will likely take a back seat to the web in terms of spend and possibly in terms of reach.  With this new elevation of awareness on how closely linked OOH or offline advertising and online searches is, we may see that swing in spending become even more pronounced.

Search is driving sales even when those searched are driven by offline advertising.

Judith Lewis is a search expert and has been working in digital marketing since 1996. She is speaking today at IMS on social media and search. She can be contacted through i-level Search or the SEO Chicks blog.