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Regoogling Pontiac

September 18, 2006 in Google, advertising by JDA

Way back, before I even had a wordpress blog, I blogged about the Pontiac ad that ends with Google Pontiac to find out more. I thought that it made sense, but…it doesn’t seem to work. Looking at Google trends, it doesn’t appear that the ad has made any impact on the search volume. The fluctuation in search volume seems to be consistent with all prior search data. So, what’s point??

It generated some buzz, but apparently not enough to change customer behavior. As I said in the earlier post, it seems to be more of a recognition of the new norm, rather than a really inspiring move. The problem as I see it, is the Pontiac site. If Googling pontiac took me to some really great site (not the same old car site that every brand has) then the campaign would be exciting. The campaign needs to hit all aspects of web presence, from the initial search to the eventual site interaction, and even interaction on other sites (youtube, myspace, etc) - otherwise don’t expect anything to change.