Google is working with five brands?Disney, Buick, Diageo, T-Mobile and Delta Airlines?to extend some of their offline marketing to the mobile Web via its image recognition application.

About a year ago, the search giant launched Google Goggles, an Android application that lets consumers search the Web for information by taking pictures of paintings, landmarks or products with their mobile devices. As part of a Google Goggles marketing experiment, the five participating brands have ?Goggles-enabled? some of their print ads, movie posters and other media.

?This is something new and exciting we?re trying out for the first time?this is uncharted territory,? said Aaron Stein, New York-based spokesman for Google. ?The goal was really to Goggles-enable ads that are not online and use Goggles to make it possible for consumers to interact with those brands online.

?Consumers can scan a Buick ad and learn more about the brand through this experiment,? he said. ?I think it?s too early to speculate as to what this will turn into, but we?re really excited about this announcement and this is the just the tip of the iceberg.

?The purpose of Google Goggles is to expand the ways you can search from your mobile phone?you can get information in different ways with your phone, input text queries, voice search and with Google Goggles you can do an image search, and this is really just an extension of that.?

Google eyes
Disney, Buick, Diageo, T-Mobile and Delta Airlines are partnering with Google as part of their efforts to make traditional media interactive and more trackable.

When consumers take pictures of these print ads, movie posters and other media with Google Goggles, they will be recognized by the application and users will have the option of clicking-through directly to a mobile destination from the brand.

Google said that it developed Goggles so that people could more easily explore the world around them with a mobile device.

In this experiment, Google is applying the same principles and the same technology by ?Goggles-enabling? advertisements and other media, and offering to link consumers to the mobile sites from these brands.

?People have already been scanning products with Goggles, so we saw an existing demand for this,? Mr. Stein said. ?We?re letting people learn more about those brands by enabling movie posters, print ads and other media with Goggles interactivity.?

Brands' use of Goggles
Walt Disney Pictures Goggles-enabled out-of-home posters for its upcoming film ?Tron Legacy.?

When consumers take a picture of the poster, they are immediately redirected to the Tron Legacy microsite on the mobile Web.

Consumers are then encouraged to view the trailer for the film.

Diageo said that it wants to provide on-the-go consumers with product information, offers, recipes or other content wherever they may need it, and Google Goggles is one way to do so, connecting various touch points.

Mobile is the one common tool that everyone has with them at all times, per Diageo.

When consumers launch Goggles and take a picture of a print ad from Buick, they are redirected to the relevant content on Buick?s mobile site.

When consumers scan this "Goggles-enabled" Buick ad with Google Goggles, they can connect directly with Buick's mobile experience.

The Buick Lacrosse is one model that the automaker is promoting via the Goggles campaign.

Buick said that it is participating in the Google Goggles marketing experiment to create a richer, deeper brand experience for consumers that view its traditional advertising.

Delta said that Goggles gives the airline a great opportunity to test at scale in an effective way.

To interact with these experimental campaigns, consumers can download Google Goggles from the Android Market or get the Google Mobile application for iPhone from the iTunes store, and look for advertising and products from the five companies.

More to come
Google said that other brands are coming on board soon.

While the experiment shows a lot of promise, some analysts are unsure whether or not Google Goggles is ready to be used as a marketing tool on a wide scale.

?This isn?t a question of how well the technology works, this is a question of the user experience, and my two cents is that it?s not ready for primetime,? said Julie Ask, vice president and principle analyst at Forrester Research, Cambridge, MA. ?Some things are really good about it?the whole notion that I see something on TV or in print or on a movie poster that I want to get more information about and I connect on my phone to do that.

?Pull marketing from the user side is good, but the challenges are that it is fragmented, and the use case isn?t very well understood by customers,? she said. ?There are different types of 2D bar codes and image recognition and now Google Goggles is yet another way.

?That Google would be the first to experiment with this makes sense, because there is relatively higher adoption of these types of apps among Android users?the bottom line, though, is that the technology works but the customer experience has to be better along a lot of dimensions.?

Analyzing brands? strategy
Right now advertisers and marketers are trying to figure out how they can effectively leverage the popularity of mobile devices in their overall marketing campaigns.

In this instance, the aim is to add interactivity into print media, which is traditionally a passive form of advertising.

Enabling print for interactivity in this manner lets marketers understand how effective their print ad promotion has been by allowing them to measure how many people have viewed and actively shown an interest in that particular offer.

?It's also compelling because it has potential to drive the user towards a measurable action?for example, pushing them to their Web site to learn more about a product,? said Nitesh Patel, Milton Keynes, England-based senior analyst of global wireless practice at Strategy Analytics.

?This type of activity has been fairly big in Japan with QR codes, but not really taken off outside that market given fragmentation in bar code readers and consequently a reluctance by marketers to engage with it,? he said.

?Goggles is clearly a more advanced and cool method of scanning the product than a 2D bar code.?

The other big question surrounding the initiative is monetization.

Is this a value-add for several of Google?s loyal advertisers?

Or is it simply a sampler to showcase the possibilities the platform opens up and encourage these brands to go all in down the road when this rolls out on a wider scale?

?I have to confess I'm not entirely sure how Google makes money from this, except if there's a cost to advertiser to Goggles-enable their advertisements,? Mr. Patel said. ?My gut feel is that Google won't charge advertisers for this given that it will likely have lower adoption.?

The point behind using visual search is that it simplifies the user experience for conducting that search.
Why type a word into a search engine when you can just snap a photo of it?

This provides convenience for the end user to engage in print ads and potentially leverages the large base of users with camera phones, assuming they all have a Goggles like app on their handset.

?I think there is a lot of potential behind augmented reality, but the reality is it usually takes time for advertisers to adopt novel ad formats,? Mr. Patel said. ?Value needs to be demonstrated and if the ability to engage in AR is not widespread.

?It is likely to remain a niche and experimental tool in the short-to-medium term,? he said.

But really, what do Disney, Buick, Diageo, T-Mobile and Delta Airlines have to lose?

Partnering with Google for an experimental campaign of this nature positions these brands as innovators and?who knows??maybe they will catch lightning in a bottle and stumble upon the next big thing in marketing.

Either way, these brands probably did not have to break the bank to participate, so it is a low-risk, high-reward scenario for them.

?In short, it seems to me that companies are trying to be early-movers, and that is the primary reason for the regular experimentation we are seeing in mobile, be it iAds, Best Buy and ShopKick, Gap and Groupon, everyone and foursquare, etcetera,? said Josh Martin, senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, Newton, MA.

?After companies were a little too slow to jump with both feet into the internet era in the last 90's they are doing the opposite right now,? he said. ?It's about brand identity, partnering with innovators and doing it for short money, which I think is the most important thing to remember.

?Most of the experiments we're seeing are either being promoted by a partner such as Google or a retailer really just offering existing sales through a new medium and aren't costing the brand very much at all, so if that's the case, why not experiment??

Final Take

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