Google to Reach Consumers

Using Google’s Data to Reach Consumers

By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN

Published: December 22, 2011

THE viruses that Google researchers usually focus on are those that strike computers, but in recent years, they have studied those that infect people, too.

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A mobile advertising campaign for a behind-the-ear thermometer by Vicks is designed to display the ad only in areas where there is a high incidence of the flu and only to mothers, the primary purchasers of thermometers.x

Google correlated billions of flu-related Web searches from 2003 to 2008 with actual Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data over the same period. Then, because Web searchers’ Internet addresses indicated location, Google devised a formula to estimate regional flu activity based solely on searches, with a reporting lag of only about a day, outdoing C.D.C. flu reports, which typically are published a week or two after outbreaks./.../