搜索的未来在于暗示的力量

就像几乎所有类别一样, the quick-service restaurant and food delivery sectors are being disrupted by new commercial models, 市场新路线, 新技术和新孩子. In turn, all of this ‘newness’ means customers are changing their behaviours.

Want to see exactly where your sandwich is all the way to your office door? Uber Eats可以让你做到这一点. Want to split your payments with your buddies at Wahaca because Nick had twice as many margaritas as everyone else? 只需使用Flypay应用程序即可. You want to know whether your pizza’s in the oven and if you have time for one more game of FIFA before it arrives? 达美乐的应用程序已经涵盖了这一点.

All of these examples are exclusive to apps, which points to a challenge and opportunity for brands. The challenge: how do we get our apps into the palms of as many customers as possible? 机会:一旦他们安装了应用程序, we’ve got a far greater and more cost-efficient route to their repeat custom.

At Domino’s, the vast majority of our traffic comes through search (paid or organic). But if we can find ways to reduce our investment in search in serving end-of-funnel needs, then we can free up marketing budget to drive more top-of-funnel awareness and consideration activities—and get more apps into more customers’ phones.

这一切对搜索意味着什么? 好吧，让我们尝试一些有趣的事情. 让我们把搜索从等式中拿出来. 让我们想象一下，消费者不想搜索. 毕竟，“搜索”听起来有点像辛苦的工作. We all know human behaviour favours the path of least resistance. There are plenty of studies proving that when you show consumers a bewildering array of choice, 它阻碍了决策.

This is the same simple notion that created the original ingredients of Google’s PageRank: show the user links to the most appropriate web pages in order of relevance based on the search term. 从本质上讲，搜索 建议 which sites are most relevant to the user’s needs based on the limited information they’ve provided.

所以，搜索的未来很简单:建议. 搜索——由谷歌定义——是当你 ‘try to find something by looking or otherwise seeking carefully and thoroughly’.  A suggestion meanwhile is ‘an idea or plan put forward for consideration’. No doubt the lazy person in all of us feels more comfortable with the latter approach.  

你可能会说这只是语义问题. 但请记住, we’re in a world where voice-assisted 工具 such as Alexa or Siri are increasingly commonplace. Consider the breadth and depth of our data footprint as we interact with the likes of Google, 亚马逊, 苹果和Facebook在我们生活中的每一步. Our expectations have shifted as we feel the need to be connected at all times. All this adds up to a reality where consumers need suggestions that remove friction and create value. 一样忙碌, 联系的人, we need technology platforms that can use all available data points to make suggestions at those times when a search just won’t do.

考虑几个场景.

1.    I’m driving home from work and picking up my son from Beavers on the way. 开了一英里后，我的汽油灯亮了. My phone—which is connected to my car—建议 that I fill up, 从明天起，我要在一条交通堵塞的路线上开很长时间的车. 然后它会告诉我去最近的加油站的方向. 就在我跳出来之前，我又收到了两个通知. One reminds me to get cash, since the place I’ve booked for lunch tomorrow doesn’t take cards. The second reminds me it’s my son’s joining-in ceremony this evening, so I need to pick up some treats to celebrate with him and his crew.

2.  We’re having a family day out, but the kids are tired and want to go home earlier than planned. 我们前往火车站. My phone senses both my direction of travel and my probable end destination. It pings me a notification pointing out the tickets for the quickest journey   at the best price. 在火车上, I then get a notification suggesting that I          remotely turn on the heating at our house because we’ll be home earlier than expected. I’m also notified that the last time we shopped was 10 days ago, 所以我最好为今晚准备点吃的. My phone then    shows me a choice of three places where I’ve bought food in recent months... 我该怎么说呢?

‘好吧谷歌. 给我点份达美乐.’

这是两个日常生活中的例子, with seven helpful suggestions and four opportunities for a monetised suggestion to the highest, 最相关的竞标者.

If I were given the choice of bidding for a place in that second scenario with the context and data behind it, or simply fighting for a click as a result of a search for “pizza delivery”, 我知道我该把体重放在哪里. While today many might think of search as an activity that consumers pursue proactively, the future will be about brands and advertisers using data to anticipate users’ needs in advance and push relevant messaging to them exactly when and where they need it.