• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 2, 2017

Marketing data company Knotch launched a free version of a Google-like search engine it calls Knowledge that allows marketers to search and follow branded content and themes published by competitors on media sites.

Knowledge enables marketers to identify in real-time content from companies like Google and Aflec that run across publisher sites such as Bloomberg, Elle, and Forbes.

"It was a difficult engineering problem because we essentially had to build Google but for a very particular type of search," said Anda Gansca, Founder and CEO, Knotch. "We had to research how distribution channels hide their branded content and index it, so we could access and re-index it to create a search engine and allow people to follow the brands."

The search engine breaks down categories by industry such as fashion, food or technology to identify the themes and the number of pieces of content published in order to help searchers understand the context of the messages.

The average person is exposed to 577 marketing messages daily, according to Accenture, which suggests that the weight falls heavily on marketers to generate unique and creative ideas for content. A recent white paper -- You Are Your Content 2017, published by Accenture and based on a study of 1,082 business executives in July 1016 -- estimates that enterprises spend between $150 million and $250 million on content-related activities per year.

Accenture's 2017 survey shows that the percentage of organizations producing enormous volumes of content has doubled since our previous study. On average, major companies are creating more than one million digital assets per year. 

As the latest addition to the Intelligence Suite For Brands, Knowledge works with the company's first product, Measurement, which provides real-time intelligence that collects and measures attitudinal and behavioral data for companies like General Electric, and JP Morgan Chase. The company also offers a product it calls Wisdom.

The company plans to push out different subscription tiers next week and impose a paywall to support some of the features. The paid version will have the ability to follow an unlimited number of brands and publishers, higher amount of users who can access the software, and more sophisticated analytics to crunch the numbers. Users will also have an option to sign up for the free version.