by News Editor
L. Sutherland
L. Sutherland
The sheer influential sway of Google is a fact that hasn't borne questioning for a number of years now. Who could argue that the massive search engine and the way it orders and collates information doesn't sway our online opinions after all? From protecting your brand to ensuring your interests - commercial or otherwise - rank well, there are lots of reasons for playing by Google's rules. And it seems that the Conservative Party has taken this massive potential on board too.According to a report in the Guardian, the Conservatives chose an intriguing online tactic to ambush Alistair Darling's budget. The party actively bought Google keywords to direct users to its "live rebuttal" of the chancellor's speech. Interestingly, the keywords were not selected prior to the speech - but were in fact chosen reactively in real time so as to best ensure that the correct keywords were employed.
This crafty use of PPC ads saw users searching for key phrases like "tobacco duty" and "budget deficit" directed to the Tory site where they found their rebuttal waiting for them. The Guardian reports that shadow secretary Jeremy Hunt said: "We understand that it's important for us to serve up our views in different formats, and Google is one of the first places people go to when trying to find information on a given subject."
He went onto explain that he believed Gordon Brown was "notorious" for not revealing the small print and that by employing a PPC campaign, the Tory party would allow people to see "the real impact of the budget on their family finances."
Quite how successful the party's attempted online coup will be remains to be seen. However, the very fact that such tactics were employed in the first place suggests a couple of points for consideration. Firstly, that the Tories seem to have a firm grasp of the advances in media technology - the party launched the intriguing Webcameron (David Cameron's video blog) in 2006 and its first official blog last year - and secondly, the scheme serves as yet another reminder of just how much power that lovable search scamp Google holds.
