WPP and Google Allocate Research Grants

Eleven universities are to receive funds from the initial round of WPP and Google three-year Marketing Research Awards Program. The money will enable them to conduct studies into how online media influences consumer behavior, attitudes and decision making.

The partners received more than 120 applications following their call for research proposals last October, when they announced the launch of the $4.6m (£2.4m) grant program.

Grant recipients will be given access to the companies' client data to enable them to investigate areas such as how psychology and neuroscience can be used to help determine the relevance of web ads, and how Internet users respond to different online ad formats.

In addition to funding, WPP will provide access to BrandZ — the annual study of brand perceptions published by The Kantar Group — and the media data and research generated at GroupM.

The projects will be overseen by Professor John Quelch, Senior Associate Dean of Harvard Business School and a Non-Executive Director of WPP; Dr Hal Varian, Google's Chief Economist; and Professor Glen Urban, former Dean of the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

'As marketing continues to become more digital and more measurable, the results of these studies would also advance our understanding of how advertising investment should be allocated among media channels,' commented Dr Varian.

Proposals for the next round of funding will begin to be accepted in the late spring. Information on the program is available at http://research.google.com/university.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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