Google Searches Turn Up More than Frogs

Determining what comes up when you type in the name of a business into Google sometimes can be a marketing nightmare…or blessing. Take the case of Budweiser, no pun intended. When you Google Budweiser, you come up with a typical Budweiser logo or two, but you also come up with three very interestingly “dressed?” ladies. The famous Bud-Weis-er frogs painted on the chests of the three women may be a marketer’s nightmare or blessing.

In the case of Budweiser, I would think this a blessing. Their target audience of mature beer drinkers may get a real kick out of the picture. In fact I did. Then I immediately sent the picture to twenty or so male friends, many of whom may have consumed a “barley pop” in the past week. Yes Budweiser consciously or unconsciously used me to advertise their brand to many friends in my address book. I’m also sure that at least two of them passed them on to other friends as I ended up getting the pictures sent back to me later that day.

The viral affects of interactive media certainly can benefit or harm companies in a very short time. Budweiser may deny ever even knowing of the three girls in the photo. But they also may have been the ones who set it up in the first place. Either way, it’s helping beer sales. I’m drinking one now.

When you Google search most words you quickly receive the information you are seeking in just a text format. While only a few sites are designed to return search results as images, many more now also include videos from YouTube. These videos like the associated images may also help or harm the brand based on the content. A Google search for Mountain Dew displays a video of someone using Mountain Dew to make a homemade glow stick. Thousands of viewers who saw the video and attempted the process found out later that it was a spoof. In this case, Mountain Dew experienced additional exposure from the video, but in a negative way.

Images and video displayed from Google searches offer companies an opportunity to improve or worsen their brand image. Yet with very little control, companies need to be aware of problems that may arise out of these issues.