Radio Ads Stall: Google Pins Offline Advertising Hopes On TV
No, Robert X. Cringely hasn’t “been asleep” while Nicholas Carr spins his “big switch” tales in preview of his next big book, waxing poetic about a sweet Apple and Google “rewiring of the world” in their images.
Cringley plays off of a quote of chief Googler Eric Schmidt to ’splain why Google and Apple are “strange bedfellows.”
I will play off of a quote by the same Google chief to explain why Google is also not destined to change the advertising world in its complete image.
In The Real Madison Ave: Before (and after) Google I discuss how, despite the current infatuation for all things Google SEARCH, Eric Schmidt and team will NOT be taking over Madison Avenue any time soon.
The Schmidt money quote, circa December 2006:
The long-term fantasy is we walk up to you and you give us, say $10 million and we’ll completely allocate it for you across different media and ad types.
The ad agency world was deemed to have been shaking in their boots at the time, Dave Morgan, Tacoda chairman, suggested, headlining “Agencies: Google has put a target on your back” and confirming, “there is clearly magic in Google’s business model.”
Three quarters later, however, the Googley financial magic continues to be 99% AdWords pure, and Tacoda is waving the AOL banner!
I have long underscored that Schimdt’s worldwide, online-offline advertising domination musings were indeed fantasy. WHY? Because despite Google’s oft stated claims, the AdWords “targeted, measurable” Google-centric, blind auction, advertisers bid-up-their-own-rates, multi-billion dollar money making self-serve Google machine is NOT inherently transferable to every single offline media platform.
NOW, Google itself is finally finessing its diversification tune and subtly acknowledging just how diffiicult it is to replicate the Google advertising magic offline.
Schmidt to Wall Street yesterday on how Google intends to keep GOOG fueled going forward:
We are working on expanding our breadth of ads offering with all sorts of new types of ads — gadget ads, video ads, others coming — and each of these initiatives gives advertisers new and interesting ways to build relationships with their customers.
So by building these deeper ad solutions, we really can deliver more value, especially in markets and industries where they’ve not really had these kinds of tools before. These are highly measurable and ROI driven campaigns and Sergey is going to talk a little bit more about this in terms of the steps we are taking in ads.
“Measurable” is the operative Google “value proposition,” the online competitive differentiator Mountain View was counting on to replicate its Web advertising domination offline.
Tim Armstrong, VP Ad Sales, on the rationale behind the Google buyout of dMarc Broadasting in January 2006:
Google is committed to exploring new ways to extend targeted, measurable advertising to other forms of media. We anticipate that this acquisition will bring new ad dollars and accountability to radio.
Despite Google’s “old college try,” however, almost two years later, Google has brought neither accountability NOR new ad dollars to radio.
Does Google “offer conversion tracking” for Audio Ads? Google asks and answers:
We don’t offer built-in tracking services for AudioAds.
Google nevertheless offers up handy ideas for markterers to do their own radio ad tracking, no matter who they buy their ads from! Unfortunately, for Google’s world ad domination ambitions, though, Google is only able to cite well-known, “old-school” proxy measures for direct ad tracking: Suvey customers, Provide coupons, Get a toll-free number…
The Google Audo Ads “value proposition” is so NON-COMPELLING, that the Googleplex has to give away radio advertising, big time, soliciting takers for its radio ad product by promising “sign-up and earn $2000 on your Google Audio Ads campaigns.” Coupled with its reimbursement of ad creation costs, Google is subsidizing advertiser radio ad “buys” to the tune of $2300.
Obviously, Google doesn’t like to talk about its radio advertising foray when it reports to Wall Street. Google is now pinning its diversification hopes on its TV ad trials:
The remarkable thing about television is, it’s surprising, but in fact of the offline advertising, it’s the one that’s closest to Internet level accountability and we feel we can bring much greater ROI type accountability to television advertising, much as we’ve done online…
I think TV ads could actually really be underappreciated in terms of our offline efforts. This is really one of the few places where you can bring the same type of Internet level accountability to offline advertising, so with search advertising, obviously our customers see real-time how their ads performed. The same thing is really true with the feedback mechanism that we get with set-top boxes. We are bringing the same level of granularity to the offline TV format.
Will Eric Schmidt soon ammend his media sales fantasy to read: The long-term fantasy is we walk up to you and you give us say $10 million and we’ll completely allocate it for you, online and on TV.
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