On Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:37:58 +0000, otteraaron wrote:


Hello,

First, I apologize if this has been answered already. I did some
searching and had no luck finding a solution.

Here's what I'm looking to do: I have a long list of text strings, and
i'm looking to identify certain keywords, and report back those
keywords.

EXAMPLE:
Column A is full of product descriptions:

Black Otterbox Case for iPhone
Blue Speck case for iphone
Pink Otterbox case for GS3
White Case Mate case for iphone 5
Blue Otterbox case for iphone 4s

Column B are the "brands" i'm searching for:
OtterBox
Case Mate
Speck

I would like to have a formula that searches for words in Column B
located in Column A, then report back that word.

Example, if A1 was "Black Otterbox case for iPhone", i would want the
result in column c to read "OtterBox"

Make sense? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!!

It appears that you want C1 to show the Brand in the string in A1.

With your brands listed in column B1:B3

C1: =LOOKUP(2,1/ISNUMBER(SEARCH($B$1:$B$3,A1)),$B$1:$B$3)

Adjust the B1:B3 range to encompass your full list of brands.

This approach can cause problems if you have two brands that have very similar names, where one is contained within the other.
For example, consider two different brands:

Otter
Otterbox

In this case, both Otter, and Otterbox would be "found" in A1. However, the formula only returns the last valid match. One solution is, when you have such a situation, be sure to list the longer brand below the shorter brand in the list.