OPEN

Johnnie Moore points to a sign of the times: a car company advertising in the US wants to boast about its customer satisfaction.

How do they do it?

A J D Power poll? An actor pretending to be a customer saying how much they love their car?

No, Pontiac, a brand that doesn’t make it to Europe often, implores interested car-buyers to Google them and see what they find.

Smart moves, if you’re sure of your product and acknowledgment of exactly what many customers will do before they buy a car (or any other major purchase) anyhow.

More evidence that search is media. Everyone’s window on the world.

What you do find if you Google Pontiac, by the way is this:

1. New cars from Pontiac – well done Pontiac’s search consultants.

2. Classical Pontiac – big up ye olde Pontiac fans.

3. City of Pontiac – OK.

4. Pontiac Grille – a restaurant in Philadelphia.

Actually fairly un-illuminating…

Then take a look at Google returns for Pontiac sucks, Pontiac complaint, and Pontiac problem. The sorts of searches I tend to do when I’m about to make a major purchase.

Not so good.

Some people are suggesting that the "Google Pontiac" call to action i a way for them to measure their ad impacts. Surely not?

Well apparently yes! And what’s more Mark-Hans Richer, director of marketing for Pontiac, thinks that this is a good way to associate Pontiac with a "cool brand" (that’s Google).

I guess I don’t know what the Pontiac demographic is in the US, so it would be ignorant of me to start drawing conclusions. From a transatlantic distance, though – it looks weird.

technorati tags: search, Pontiac, Google, marketing, advertising