• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, March 10, 2004

How does one measure buzz?

There are many traditional methodologies for measuring buzz, most of which involve pre and post studies that measure such traditional metrics as brand awareness and intent. These methodologies are tried and true and are typically an accurate measure of the effect of advertising and its translation into "buzz." The problem with this type of analysis is it takes time and cannot be acted upon quickly. I propose that there is a better way of measuring and reacting to the buzz that is generated by utilizing search.

For quite some time there have been a number of online tools utilized by niche categories such as gaming to measure buzz. Gamespot has had a tool that consistently provides an adequate snapshot into the gamer audience and their reactions to targeted advertising and messaging. Google has had its own tool called Zeitgeist that provides an interesting glimpse into the world of popular culture, but it's not complete as it does not reflect prior information or incorporate advertising effect into the consideration set. Yahoo! has been running a buzz meter for some time, but it also does not provide the detail that I think an advertiser would benefit from when comparing the variables of advertising to outside factors.

The tool that I am envisioning is more complete. Search provides an immediate tool for tracking the heightened awareness of a topic in the eyes of the mass market. Search has an almost 100% reach into the online audience, and since the online audience represents approximately 70% of the US population, I would pose that this is the most accurate sample size available for advertisers to gleam information from.

The specific methodology for this tool would be to first take the average volume of searches related to a brand or topic within a period of time, potentially a rolling two week period. Then compare this number to the total volume of searches applied to a specific category, such as soft drinks or movies, and compare this to the increase/decrease in total average searches for that period of time.

This would provide the advertiser with an understanding of the baseline for a brand vs. category, and the increase/decrease in interest for that category and the brand respectively during a period of time, factoring in the total volume of searches to eliminate natural growth of the search tool itself. This model of analysis would provide advertisers with a tracking tool to measure in real-time the effect of advertising, PR and other factors on the awareness of the brand. By factoring in some other elements, such as random surveys and more traditional models, we could also gather other information on intent to purchase and other, more qualitative metrics for measuring the effect of advertising.

The closest of the aforementioned tools in the marketplace would be Yahoo!, but from what I have seen and heard it does not provide this exact information. I inquired to a number of the players in the category to ask them if they would be interested in fleshing out this type of tool, highlighting the value that advertisers would see from this type of a service, but unfortunately the interest was minimal and therefore I bring it to you, the public. I think this model could be very important for the advertising industry as whole as it would factor in the effects of offline advertising as well as online advertising. I feel this would provide more accurate information for advertisers, and could even morph into a basic and premium service with advertisers subscribing to the information in much the same way that we currently subscribe to Jupiter or Forrester data. Before this can be built out, and before we can determine who is best able to provide such a service, I am curious what your opinion would be?

What do you think would be missing from this type of a tool and what do you feel could be added?