Google University Launches a Research Program in Collaboration with WPP
Google and the WPP Group have just announced the launch of a new research program “to improve understanding and practices in online marketing, and to better understand the relationship between online and offline media.”
The Google and WPP Marketing Research Awards Program will support a dozen research projects costing between $50,000 and $70,000 each. The proposed topics are centered around 3 fields: online and offline media interaction, relevance and effectiveness measurement, audience types and engagement.
A few research topic examples:
1 – Online and offline media interaction
How does offline media affect search and vice versa? What are the appropriate metrics for comparing and contrasting online and offline media performance? How will the total advertising budget for a firm change with new digital media availabilities?
2 – Relevance and effectiveness measurement
How do consumers determine what is relevant? What metrics can be used to measure causal effect of a campaign on purchase both online and offline? What is the ROI for digital media?
How can banner ads be more effective?
3- Audience types and engagement
What do we know and what more do we need to know about on-line audiences? How can advertisers be welcome in social networks?
“We want to encourage more research about how online and offline media work together to influence consumer choices. We think that such research will contribute to more effective and more measurable advertising performance,” said Hal Varian, of Google, head economist and co-director of the grant program.
Google’s Senior Vice President and President of Advertising Operations for the Americas, Tim Armstrong, said of the collaboration: “we’re very pleased to be working with WPP to encourage new insights into online advertising.” He went on to say, “As it becomes more challenging to reach consumers through any one medium, we hope programs like this will help drive a deeper understanding of how marketers can engage consumers, both online and offline.”
More to follow…
For more information, head to Google or WPP.
Sources:
PR-inside.com
research.google.com
dmnews.com
Image source: Google Images
Adapted by Jessica Hartstein
Tags: google, offline media, online media
