Google and WPP Invest in Digital Marketing Research

Search engine kingpins, Google have teamed up with the WPP's Marketing Research Awards Program to promote research into on-line media, and how it influences today's consumer behaviours, attitudes and decision making processes.

The two companies will award £2.9 million between them over the next three years to successful proposals and have already started inviting grant applications. Speaking about the partnership, Google's chief economist, Hal Varian said, "We want to encourage more research about how on-line and off-line media work together to influence consumer choices. We think that such research will contribute to more effective and more measurable advertising performance."

On-line media, and email marketing in particular, have been growing steadily through 2008 as more and more businesses recognise the cost-effectiveness of these channels: in part through the enforced reductions of marketing budgets as a result of the recession but also through increased confidence in the medium and a competitive drive to innovate. The increased popularity of email marketing should lead to further innovations as more people become prepared to invest time and money into the field. The findings of future Google and WPP joint-funded programs are likely to be just the first in a series of many thought-leading reappraisals of the industry.

So what might the on-line media world expect to learn from the research programs? Our guess here at eMailCampaigner is a greater understanding of how integral multi-channel strategies are to increasing sales turnover and how off-line and on-line channels can work in conjunction to improve sales conversion efficiency. With Google behind the initiative, there's also likely to be an emphasis on demonstrating the importance of relevant, targeted messages to capture consumers' attentions.

As Mark Read, CEO of WPP Digital writes, �The digital age raises many complex and critically important questions for marketers and media owners. The meshing of the business and academic worlds puts us on the path to providing robust answers.� At present, no one can be completely what shape these answers will take, but with Google and WPP behind the funding, we can at least be confident the research will help redefine the marketing industry.