Google Trends can provide the proof. Let’s use the 2015 Cannes Lions Grand Prix winner as an example.
The Always #Likeagirl campaign ‘Turning an insult into a confidence movement’ by Procter & Gamble and Leo Burnett. Now we have our example campaign let’s get started.
- Go to Google and search for Trends and click on Google Trends at the top of the results.
- Search for the campaign name in the search bar: “run like a girl.”
You’ll see very quickly, a graph appears showing how people have searched for “run like a girl” over time. You’ll also see a huge spike in people searching in February 2015. The exact time the Always campaign went live.
Let’s look a little closer.
Refine the time by clicking on the ‘date range’ option at the top. Go to the bottom of the date options and click ‘Custom’. This will allow you to select a small date range. I chose January to July 2015.
You can also add additional search terms to look for correlation in how the public searched.
Here I’ve added the brand name “Always”.
You could argue that people might search for the word ‘Always’ for all sorts of reasons and it might not relate to this particular campaign. However, clever Google asks what form of Always we require and gives us the option of Always the song, the film or the U.S. sitcom. I’d like to check the brand name so I type “Always brand” and click on brand suggestion below.
Brand engagement
Immediately you can see a clear correlation between the two search terms. This tells me that in February 2015 when the Always public relations campaign went live, and coverage started to hit, there was a huge increase of interest in the campaign and brand name.
The campaign made the target audience aware and led them to take action by searching for more information and not just about the campaign but Always the brand too.
Once people searched they were met with some great ‘owned content’ results including, the Always site and social channels and ‘earned content’ through the big public relations coverage also appear-ing in Google results.
Not only did the public relations campaign make the target audience aware, it also triggered them to take action and find out more. They went to Google and searched for more information. They en-gaged with the campaign content and the earned public relations coverage.
A simple proof point that it’s a great addition for reports.
And there’s more
If a graph of public activity isn’t enough and you are curious about how many people went on to search for the campaign and brand name, then it’s time to use our next Google tool: Google Ad-words keyword planner tool.
By signing up to Google Adwords (also free) you can use the tools within it including the keyword planner which provides you with search volume data - also known as amazing audience insight.
I went to get search volume data and trends and added my brand and campaign name. Here is the data behind the trends graphs.
Always had an additional 10,000 people searching for their brand name at the height of the cam-paign and just under 40,000 people searching for the campaign name and #tag..
I only used two terms in my example. Imagine if I added some other related campaign terms! A great addition of measurement that proves audience action for my report, all in a matter of minutes.
