Viewing the world through Goggles

Ever since its launch a year ago, Google Goggles has made mobile searches a more effective and less cumbersome task. Just like its siblings, the Google Instant Preview and Instant Search, Google Goggles also aims at making the life of the user a little less time consuming and a lot more interesting!!

On Tuesday November 16th 2010, Google raised the bar further by launching a marketing experiment that could possibly revamp the landscape of both retail and digital marketing.

The experiment allows five big brands - Disney, Buick, Diageo, T- Mobile and Delta Airlines to use this application for their non-digital marketing promotional materials like print ads, movie posters and other media.

What this basically means is that when users take photos of these non-digital marketing promotional materials using Goggles, the application will recognize these and provide the user with an option of clicking- through straight to a mobile-friendly webpage of the brand.

What is Google Goggles?

Google Goggles allows the user to conduct a mobile search of the web for information on pictures clicked by him using this application. It is ideal for things that cannot be described easily in words.

It does not require the user to type or speak. All he needs to do is open the application, take the picture, and wait for the search results.

Google Goggles works best for certain types of queries like logos, artworks, books and DVDs. As of now, it is not very effective when it comes to finding information on pictures taken of animals, plants or cars.

Google's experiment is directed at studying how mobile and visual search results affect consumer's behavior and interaction with brands. In the words of Google's Michael Slinger "It's a learning experiment for us more than an opportunity to make money."

Michael also mentioned "We've got the distribution and interesting visuals. Everything hinges on whether the users will adopt this or not." Based on Google's statistics stating that mobile searches have increased by 500% since 2008 and that Goggles has been downloaded some 250,000 times, We can safely bet that chances of users adopting this change in the future are quite high.

Goggles and marketing: a possible integration?

The application is not new but the idea is. This innovation could help in promoting a brand's image as digitally savvy and progressive, words synonyms with the young generation.

Digital visibility of brands is bound to go up as well, a dream come true for any digital marketing person. This is because even though a user starts at the point of offline marketing - by clicking a picture, say that of a Disney movie poster, he is immediately redirected via the digital platform to Disney's mobile friendly site where he can see the trailer of that film! He is now at the other end of the spectrum - digital marketing.

Mobile and visual searches are bound to alter the relationship between customers and brands. A change in this relationship will have a domino effect on both, digital and non-digital marketing strategies for brand promotion.

Integrating offline marketing strategies with digital marketing techniques has always been a challenge for marketers. This Experiment of Google with Google Goggles may just effectively manage to accomplish this provided the basics of digital marketing are integrated effectively with offline marketing techniques.

Digital marketing experts are advised to hitch their wagon to this star and see where it takes them.

Qudos Digital is a leading digital marketing agency and can be contacted on 020 8891 2077 or info@qudosdigital.co.uk

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