PR is offline search optimisation April 18, 2008
Posted by James Warren in Uncategorized.trackback
This afternoon I was having a discussion with the very brilliant Leo, our European planning director (he comes from the ad industry so wears cool glasses, wears *enormous* headphones and thinks a lot) when he suddenly came up with a nugget of total genius. I was rabbiting on about the massive importance of search as relates to (digital) advocacy, when he said
then traditional PR is surely about offline search optimisation.
Which is quite a big thought.
The fact you put ‘digital’ in parentheses says it all. What is ‘offline’ after all, given 99% of what we print on dead trees is also available in digital form?
is that statistic ‘true’?
No. Probably not. I am prone to exaggeration (so I’ve been told, a million times). But I did hear someone say 90% the other day … and it was someone who ought to know.
search implies someone is looking. In the offline world people are not looking which is why it is known as an interruptive model. You watch TV, I show you commercials. You turn the page in a mag, I show you an ad. Some advertising eg specialist press like cars or hobbies is sought out, usually for hard facts like price.
In the offline world by entering a search term I give you a clue on what to serve me, with your hope being to start a conversation. The ad may or may not be interruptive depending on what I am doing, but as time goes on and tech improves, the quality of the search return will improve as eg such clues as what were the last three pages you looked at become available.
but I liked the sentiment of the line a lot anyway.
;-))