For Valentines, Consumer Searches For 'Love Poems' Exceed Flowers and Gifts

Valentine's Day has long been one of the most lucrative days of the year for merchants of greeting cards, chocolates and flowers, as lovers and friends express their affection by showering each other with gifts. While it's not surprising that online retailers of flowers and gifts experience increased sales in the weeks leading up to February 14, what is surprising is that searches for "love poems" surpass searches for flowers and other Valentine's Day gift staples.

According to Hitwise data, the share of Internet searches for "love poems" was up 81 percent for the week ending February 11, 2006 versus the week ending January 28, 2006. With the exception of Mother's Day flower searching, "love poems" receives a greater share of searches throughout the year than "flowers", "e-cards", and another popular Valentine's Day gift, "lingerie".

For the week ending February 11, 2006, the market share of visits to the Hitwise Flowers & Gifts category increased by 39 percent versus the week ending February 4, 2006, while the market share of visits to the top 10 poetry sites were up 14 percent. The site Poems for Free (www.poemsforfree.com) showed the largest increase in market share of visits in that time period, with an increase of 55 percent. Leading Flowers & Gifts retailers with the greatest increases in market share of visits in that time period were Vermont Teddy Bear Company (www.vermonteddybear.com), up 322 percent, FTD.com (www.ftd.com), up 179 percent, and 1-800-Flowers.com (www.1800flowers.com), up 106 percent.

"Search behavior indicates that users are highly involved in the romantic nature of Valentine's Day," said Bill Tancer, General Manager, Global Research for Hitwise. "Purveyors of gift items could engage users further by adding site content that helped buyers express their feelings in words as well as goods."

Visitors to the leading poetry sites tend to be younger than the average Internet user, while visitors to Flowers & Gifts websites tend to resemble the online population as a whole. For the four weeks ending February 4, 2006, visitors to the leading poetry site, Poetry.com (www.poetry.com), were 56 percent more likely to be in the 18-24 age group. Visitors to another leading poetry site, Love Poems and Quotes (www.lovepoemsandquotes.com), were 100 times more likely to be between 18 and 24 years of age, with 35 percent of all visitors in that age group.

Top 10 Sites by Market Share of Visits to Poetry Custom Category Week Ending February 11, 2006

Interactive Sites Experience Strong Growth in Visits and Average Session Time

With Super Bowl XL commercial spots reaching an estimated $2.5 million for thirty seconds of air-time, many advertisers are looking for ways to maximize viewer interaction with cross-media promotions. But are Super Bowl television ads effective in driving visits to their online components?

According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, the share of US Internet searches for "super bowl ads" increased by 1,416 percent in the week prior to Super Bowl XL (week ending February 4, 2006) compared to the week prior to Super Bowl XXXIX (week ending February 5, 2005). For the four weeks ending February 4, "super bowl ads" was the most common search phrase containing the words "super bowl", further demonstrating that the custom of watching the ads during the big game is highly steeped in Super Bowl tradition.

On Super Bowl Sunday (February 5, 2006), visits to IFILM (www.ifilm.com), the leading site to watch Super Bowl clips and ads, increased by 49 percent versus the previous day (February 4, 2006). Prominent placement of IFILM's Super Bowl ads on Yahoo! Video Search (http://video.yahoo.com) was responsible for much of the increase: Yahoo! Video Search was the source of 27.9 percent of visits to IFILM on February 5, 2006 versus 5.9 percent of upstream visits on February 4, 2006. AOL Sports also featured Super Bowl ads on its site, and visits increased by 131 percent on February 5, 2006 versus February 4, 2006. Visits to the Hitwise Sports category increased by only 6.8 percent in the same period, indicating that unique content on AOL sports drove traffic on Super Bowl Sunday.

"User behavior on Super Bowl Sunday clearly demonstrates consumer demand for the online component of these commercials," said Bill Tancer, General Manager, Global Research for Hitwise. "Engaging consumers online with a service or product brand is a great way to leverage the investment in these costly spots."

As an example, Burger King and Diet Pepsi created special interactive sites for Super Bowl XL that tied in with the television commercial. Diet Pepsi's site, Brown & Bubbly, which tied in with the P. Diddy commercial, had an average user session time of 3 minutes 59 seconds on game day on February 5, 2006, compared to a 16 second average session time for the Diet Pepsi site. On Brown & Bubbly users could watch "video reject" ads and create a personalized video by uploading a digital picture. Burger King's Whopperettes site encouraged users to create a customized Whopper out of Whopperettes, and had an average session time of 1 minute 23 seconds.

GoDaddy.com (www.godaddy.com), promising viewers that they could "see more" on their website, registered the greatest daily increase on Super Bowl Sunday, with a 423 percent increase in market share of visits compared to Saturday, February 4, 2006. Dove, which registered a 251 percent increase in daily visits to its Campaign for Real Beauty website (www.campaignforrealbeauty.com), received kudos for its commercial that promoted self-esteem for teen girls, was also responsible for driving 9.8 percent of its visits to a donation page for the Girl Scouts of America's Uniquely Me program.

Super Bowl Advertiser Websites with Largest Change in Market Share of Internet Visits February 4, 2006 compared to February 5, 2006

Hitwise Search Intelligence data reveal the websites receiving the most traffic from the search term "olympics" for the four weeks ending February 11, 2006. The results are ordered based on the volume of searches (see table below).

Top 10 Sites receiving traffic from the search term "olympics" - based on volume of searches Period - Four Weeks Ending 02/11/2006

Fast Mover - Senator John McCain

http://mccain.senate.gov


Position week ending February 4: Did Not Rank
Position week ending February 11: 199
Positions jumped: 199

As the 2008 election nears and candidate speculation grows, United States residents are becoming increasingly aware of movements and rumblings in Washington. While most politically minded Americans visit the main news services to get breaking stories, many are also reaching out to websites that offer more specific information and opinions on certain issues and political players. One such website, the official site of US Senator John McCain (http://mccain.senate.gov), has rapidly increased in market share of visits as U.S. Internet users visit McCain's site to learn more about his specific activities and opinions.

Hitwise data show that McCain's site has experienced a dramatic increase in market share of US visits by 1,776 percent (week ending February 11, 2006 versus week ending February 4, 2006). The site has climbed the ranks in the Hitwise Government category to position 199 (week ending February 11, 2006). One cause of people's heightened interest in Senator McCain is his involvement with the Pork Barrel Reduction Act, a bipartisan earmark reform bill, and his open letter to Senator Barack Obama in regards to his withdrawal of support for the bill.

Hitwise Search Terms and Clickstream data provide further evidence of the correlation between the Pork Barrel Reduction Act and the increase in traffic to McCain's site. While the top four search terms that drove traffic to McCain's site for the four weeks ending February 11, 2006 are associated with his name, other search terms driving traffic include "congress united states earmark", "mccain's letter", and "letter from john mccain to obama". The top three sites visited before McCain's site for the week ending February 11, 2006 were the Drudge Report (www.drudgereport.com), which contained numerous articles regarding the Port Barrel Act and the open letter to Obama; Google (www.google.com); and the United States Senate website (www.senate.gov). Even more intriguing, Senator Barack Obama's website http://obama.senate.gov was the 8th most popular site visited after http://mccain.senate.gov with a total of 2.11% of downstream traffic.

Category Spotlight: Travel - Cruises

The data below is based on All sites » Weekly rankings for the week ending 02/18/2006 » Ranks by 'Visits'.

Top 10 Travel - Cruises sites		Average Session Duration
Vacations To Go Carnival Cruise Lines Royal Caribbean International Princess Cruises Travelzoo Cruises Norwegian Cruise Line Cheaptickets Cruises Cruise.com Orbitz Cruises Cruise Critic		The average session duration for the Travel - Cruises category during the week ending 02/18/06 was 9 minutes, 45 seconds which represents a decrease of 6 seconds compared with last week.

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Copyright Hitwise Pty Ltd, February 2006