What a 2008 Bus Ad Teaches Us About Offline Marketing and SEO/GEO Today, a Hamsterdam History Lesson

By Ethan Lazuk

Welcome to another edition of Hamsterdam History!

This is a series of posts where we look at “vintage” SEO articles to celebrate their contributors, gain historical knowledge, and discuss how things have changed (or haven’t) since.

In this post, we’ll be going back in time to look at “But Will It Google?” authored by Jane Copland for SEOMoz on January 30, 2008.

In the article, Jane mentions seeing a memorable ad on a Seattle bus for a condominium (second paragraph above).

She then tried to find the company on Google using the info she had available from the ad, but was unsuccessful:

“I had no luck whatsoever. I tried a number of different searches using the content of the ad, such as and one ugly one seattle flats, and one ugly one, seattle bus advertisement “and one ugly one”, plus a string of other queries, some more sensible than others. I included the street, the city, and the ad’s keywords in multiple search phrases. The best result I got was this site, which links to the author’s Twitter update about the ad.”

She later discovered that the company’s website also had some technical issues hindering its visibility in search:

“Every single search-engine-friendly practice is blatantly missing. The site displays no meta information, no H1 tags, no H2s, no meaningful title tag, and absolutely no written content. There is only one page, as all the content is presented in Flash.”

Back in 2008, there was a limitation on “Internet-equipped mobile phones,” which would have prevented most people from searching up the ad in real time.

And we already know the struggle back then of having to search a query in keywordese vs. natural language like we can today.

Nowadays, we can simply snap a photo of a bus ad, upload it to an AI assistant app like ChatGPT or Gemini, and ask it to identify the advertiser or help us investigate what we saw.

Or we could use reverse image search on Google, even speaking into our phones to do it.

The point is, we have far more options for searching today than back in 2008, and that makes practical tasks — like looking up a company based on its bus ad — much easier.

But what about the connection between offline marketing and online visibility? That feels more timeless.

Jumping from 2008 to 2023, let’s look at another Moz article, one by Miriam Ellis that I’ve never forgotten for its tremendous value: “Local Business E-E-A-T: Real-world Examples of How This Works.”

One of the article’s central ideas is that many of the signals supporting online EEAT begin with traditional, real-world business practices that are then documented on the web.

Although Miriam doesn’t discuss advertising, the same principle applies: if you have a memorable ad, that can lead people to search your brand (or prompt an AI assistant).

Either way, you’ll need to have a strong online presence to capture that search demand, something the condominium company didn’t have back in 2008.

The idea of connecting offline marketing to online visibility was also recently discussed on the Near Memo podcast:

They mention how offline touchpoints build the distinctiveness that makes customers remember a brand when searching online (like that bus ad did back in 2008).

They conclude that offline and online marketing shouldn’t operate in silos, but rather offline efforts create distinction, trust, and mentions in a local context that can feed digital discovery and local search performance.

Offline marketing and AI visibility have the same challenge: measurement.

It’s hard to know if a recommendation of your brand in an AI-generated answer translates to a sale later, just as it’s hard to know if that clever bus ad you did worked to convert people to become tenants of your condominium.

Two possible ways to assess the influence of offline marketing or AI visibility are branded search (in Google Search Console) and direct traffic (in GA4). If you see a spike in either correlated with a campaign or recent increase in AI visibility, that can give you some, albeit tenuous, proof that your efforts are working.

You can also ask “how did you hear about us?” and use self-attribution to help paint the measurement picture.

So what’s changed from 2008 and what’s stayed the same?

Unlike in 2008, most people have the ability to search for info on their mobile phones today. We also no longer have to rely on keywordese. In fact, we can use live video to converse in real-time with AI assistant apps like ChatGPT or Gemini.

I’d argue that makes your offline marketing more relevant to your search and AI visibility goals.

As we saw in the 2008 SEOMoz blog post, the author encountered a technically limited website that prevented her from fully exploring the business online.

The story is no different today. Businesses need a strong online presence, including a website and likely a Google Business Profile, so that interest generated by offline marketing can be converted later.

Of course, measurement of offline marketing, like AI visibility today, is a perennial challenge, but indicators like branded or direct search can help shape the narrative.

As Miriam’s 2023 article highlights, online EEAT is simply a reflection of traditional marketing practices but digitized.

And as the Near Memo podcast episode shows us, offline marketing is still relevant in the age of AI (and I’d argue more relevant, now that it’s easier than ever to search up a brand you see out in the wild).

Given all this, what are our key takeaways?

Offline marketing can certainly lead to recognition or create demand for a brand, but it’s your SEO/GEO strategy that determines whether people (and AI assistants) can connect that recognition to the correct brand and take appropriate action.

For example, that memorable slogan from your offline ad should also appear in crawlable online content. Your brand’s name, location, services, and other key info should be consistent across your website, GBP, socials, and elsewhere.

AI assistants may be able to identify a photo of an ad, but they still need reliable online info to verify your business and answer any follow-up questions.

Offline marketing can generate things like reviews, branded searches, local mentions, press coverage, and UGC that later become part of the info available to search engines and AI assistants.

So if you care about your online marketing, don’t neglect the connection it has to your offline marketing. That’s as true today as it was back in 2008.

Outro

I hope you’ve enjoyed this edition of Hamsterdam History!

Stay tuned for another edition soon, or check out related history articles below.

Until next time, enjoy the vibes:

Thanks for reading. Happy optimizing!

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Related history posts: