Search, Media, and Marketing – iHollywood

More from iHollywood – a great panel, and hopefully the notes capture a lot of these best practices for search engine marketing.
Search, Media, and Marketing
*Dave Fall, VP Product Mgmt – Search Technology, DoubleClick
*Adam Stewart, Industry Dir – Media & Entertainment, Google
*Dema Zlotin, Founder & VP – Strategic Services, SEMDirector
*Robert Hayes, SVP/GM – Digital Media, Showtime
*Bill Macaitis, VP Online Marketing, Fox Interactive Media
Moderator: James Lamberti – SVP Search & Media, comScore Networks
Notes from the panel (my comments in parentheses):
Google – talking to movie studios about films coming out next May
DoubleClick – betting heavily on search (okay, but Google probably could do the search thing pretty well on its own)
comScore: Search as direct response vehicle – is there more?
Google – did study with Nielsen talking to moviegoers after movies. After TV, word of mouth, people were going to Web for most info about films. In terms of level of influence, online was on par with TV. 1/3 of all moviegoers were searching for films online. Gets to full picture of online driving offline.
Showtime: Branding, awareness, tune-in all important – having results consistently ranking high in natural and paid gives positive effect to brand. Latent effect also there. One goal: subscriber acquisition. Targets lifestyle, behavioral campaign (eg people moving). Some responses happen weeks later. Tracked in many ways, such as through rebate offerings.
SEMDirector: Role of search in buying cycle. Search has best ROI of all forms of media. Search is used for arbitrage – monetize traffic on site, but pay fraction of cost on search engines from paid perspecitve, plus organic traffic is free. Some clients have 60% of traffic to site comes from search.
Showtime: 60% of traffic comes from search
comScore: Average is 30%, but can get up there. Most of value of search happens offline. Q: Can search impact brand awareness?
Google: pay attention to whole ecosystem
comScore: Major lift on brand terms when marketing on non-brand terms – holisitc linkage with  rest of media. Q: ROI of paid search, SEO?
Fox: Aggressive with both. SEO – incredible ROI, especially for long run. Takes a lot of work though. Engineers, designers, editorial – all levels of company must get involved. Both provide great ROI.
comScore: Do you need to do both SEM and SEO?
Showtime: Many shows are generic terms – Weeds, Meadowlands, Dexter (maybe not so much for Tudors) – hard for them to beat Dexter shoes on organic search, so need to plan in advance and must purchase words when news hits.
comScore: Any trends of in-house or using agencies for search?
SEMDirector: More of a shift to in-house. More talent coming on the market (really? – not seeing it). Technologies to measure/manage have evolved.
comScore: What about advanced learnings from search?
Google: Amazing correlation between search volume and box office results (outdated study too, before great tracking). Database of intent.
Fox: Most popular gaming search is “cheats.” Created new site for cheats. No advertising. 2  million unique visitors in a year and a half. Revolve content creation strategy around search trends.
Showtime: For 2nd, 3rd seasons – uses past search history as planning process for next campaign, eg around top characters/actors. It can factor in even who gets top billing.
(Expect lots of new features starring Paris Hilton)
SEMDirector: Distinction between company selling laptops and notebooks – they sold notebooks, but changed it to laptops because that’s what drove searches.
comScore: What would you recommend newcomer do as forward-thinking use of search?
DoubleClick: Companies organizing around organic/paid with comprehensive campaign are doing much better. Takes some mental toughness to reorganize around copy, IT issues, etc.
Google: Integration into other channels – focus on offline.
SEMDirector: Centralizing Center of Excellence model where core strategy for search is set at senior, central level.
Showtime: Sync with offline campaign, eg commercials syncing with paid search.
comScore: Include awareness offline in planning. Use data understood by whole organization.