Whatever will you buy for Valentine's Day?

In case Google was having second thoughts about its $3.1 billion bid to acquire DoubleClick, the latter’s Performics unit proves its worth with a timely report on Valentine’s Day gift-shopping trends. This summary is provided for the media: “Respondents plan to purchase the overall most popular gifts for men and women, flowers and candy, offline.” Flowers and candy are big on Valentine’s Day? Stop the presses. That part about offline purchases isn’t so good for Google or DoubleClick, of course, but never fear, the survey says: “No matter where consumers intend to make their purchases, online is proving to be the springboard and a key influencer for much of their purchase activities.”