Food: Organic vs. Paid

January/February 2007 Issue: Page 60

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SEMphonic researched the search engine marketing (SEM) efforts of Sara Lee, Omaha Steaks, Kellogg's and Kraft for the week of October 1 through October 8. For Sara Lee, Kellogg's and Kraft, there are numerous brands within their websites and in most cases it appears they primarily drive traffic to their brand-level sites.

Sara Lee's umbrella includes a large number of brand specific sites such as Ballpark and sites for particular divisions like SaraLeeCoffeeAndTea. Sara Lee does not seem to focus on different categories such as sites concentrating on diet or recipes. Sara Lee did not appear to have a PPC program in progress.

Sara Lee's organic program was not very effective; it did not do well in anything but branded terms that included Sara Lee with additional terms. Ballpark's performance was similar. It owned the No. 1 spot in Ballpark Franks but didn't appear in "hot dogs." With neither a strong paid or organic program, the Sara Lee divisions seemed like the least competitive SEM program in the space.

Omaha Steaks is an aggressive online seller and presence. They have a very strong PPC program that encompasses many of their core product terms (steaks, filet, order steaks, etc.) and extends to concept words like "tailgating" and even "meat." They buy on all four engines Semphonic examined (Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com) and run a variety of creatives.

Omaha has done an excellent job with SEO. They own top organic positions for a whole variety of steak terms (strip, filet, boneless strips) and are strong across all of the search engines. Where they aren't strong organically (i.e., burgers) they buy a top position with their paid program. This illustrates sensitivity to the interaction of their paid and organic programs. With keywords they will often own the No. 1 position in both organic and paid programs. The program is very well designed.

Kellogg's site is really nothing more than a corporate feeder site - with links out to the various brand sites. The Rice Krispies site is not broadly SEM efficient - with no particular search presence in any generic search area like diet, family or cooking. In addition, the site doesn't do well for cereal words or potentially related terms like "kids snacks." Even for highly specific searches like "toasted rice cereal," only MSN gave the Rice Krispies site a high ranking. The site appears regularly only with the word "Krispies" - hardly a sterling performance for organic search optimization.

In some cases, organizations turn to PPC when they want to drive search traffic and their sites are not highly ranked. However, there was no evidence of PPC support for the Rice Krispies site - and the nature of the sell may well make this impractical. At least for now, search engine marketing looks like a forgotten stepchild in the Kellogg's Internet strategy.

Kraft's umbrella site is primarily a corporate feeder. Kraft has a KraftFoods.com site that focuses on much broader cooking and health issues. The Kraft site also includes brand-specific strategies, which are generally subcontained under kraftfoods. The KraftFoods.com site is, therefore, the primary target of Kraft's consumer search engine marketing program. Kraft has a fairly aggressive PPC program. They buy brand terms like "Jello" as well as more generic terms like "soup recipes" and "easy recipes." They also buy across multiple engines - appearing on all four engines - but with most of their emphasis seeming to be on Yahoo and MSN. This is a rare program that is not at all Google-focused.

Their program is supplemented by an excellent overall organic search presence (on Google as well as other engines). They do very well in basic brand terms and are strong in recipes and some aspects of health and diet. For a search term like "South Beach Diet" they actually crack the first page of Google - no mean feat. Overall, this is a strong program spanning multiple food areas, strongly supporting individual brands and emphasizing strong organic listing performance with PPC supplementation.

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