Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

The Advertising Club of New York’s event last evening at the NYC Googleplex was billed an “All Google” advertising one. The “all” Google advertising sales represented, though, was merely of the non-money making variety: Google Print Ads, Google Radio Ads, Google TV Ads…NOT an AdWords or an AdSense rep was in Googley sight at the luxury Google cafeteria complex which hosted several hundred New York advertising and technology execs.

Nevertheless, the GOOG fuel money making stars WERE the star attractions, as all OTHER Google ad products depend, inevitably, on an ingtegrated, search advertising upsell pitch, unable to close their own independent ROI value propositions.

The cheery panel of Google cheerleaders professionaly spun their respective product spiels. Long Ellis, Head of TV Sales, however, seemed to have spun himself into a tizzy.

How happy is Ellis to be a Googler at last? The prospect of selling Google TV ”sent shivers down my spine,” Ellis gushed. After all, “if Google can’t do it, who can?” he reminded us.

Ellis may have no “remorse” in joining Google, but Google advertisers do, big time, the Google TV point man unwittingly advised. Ellis touted the advangtages of the Google TV bidding scheme; In so doing, however, a BIG marketer disadvantage of the world famous Google black box AdWords auction cash Google cow was apparent.

The Google TV point man assured New York marketers and media planners that the Google TV “auction theory” prervents “buyer’s remorse” because the winning bidder ends up paying the bid price of the runner up bidder.  WHAT ABOUT ADWORDS THEN? IS GOOGLE GIDDILY CAUSING MULTI BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN ADVERTISERS’ “BUYERS’ REMORSE” becasuse it doesn’t adhere to the “auction theory” that Google TV ads does?

Apparently so. MORE ON GOOGLE ADWORDS “MAGIC”: Why Advertisers LOSE In Publicis, Google SEM Deal and
Yellow Pages Get Reprieve? The Myth of King Google Local Advertising ROI and
Reach Local Advertising? How Google Squeezes SEMs and AdWords Buyers and
Local Ad Sales War: Why Google is a Guaranteed Winner and
Google AdWords Plus Box: Local CPC Bidding War Unleashed! and
Google Apps & Maps: Enterprise and Local Business STILL Missing and
Google Zeitgeist: $200 University Payola AdWords Scam and
How Google AdSense FAILS Better Business Bureau and

PLUS: Frugal Google.org: How NOT To Save the World On $159,000 a Day and Google CEO In-Car Radio Ad Vision Fading and Microsoft Seeks Healthy Relationship with Google: Health Vault INTERVIEW and Yahoo Shareholder on Microsoft Bid: AOL, Time Warner All Over Again?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Publicis CEO Maurice Levy undoubtedly believes he has obtained a competitive coup in obtaining the friendship of Google CEO Eric Schmidt: In typical Googley “partner” fashion, all hail King Google and its beneficence:

Mr. Levy said the goal is to create a “triple-win” — not just a win-win — situation. “Our clients win, the platform Google wins and the ad industry/Publicis wins. We’re bringing Google our knowledge of advertising communications, consumers and client needs. They’re bringing us knowledge of technology and the world of the web.”

BUT, in REAL typical Google fashion, it is actually $200 billion market cap Google that wins the most.

What is the big, bad Google-Publcis “initiative”?  Google shrewdly continues its worldwide mission of putting the burden of selling more Google ads on other more than willing companies!

Yesterday, Spot Runner. SEE my story: Spot Runner Sells For Rival Google: Local SEM Bandwagon Grows

Today, Publicis, which will be “using Google staff and materials for training programs.” What’s more, Google “has established a dedicated global account team for Publicis Groupe.” YAY? More Google ads for Publicis clients!

Publicis will undoubtedly spin Google ad sales to its accounts by touting a singular, competition trumping, exclusive knowledge of Google AdWords. Savvy Publicis clients, however, will know that Google reveals nothing to anyone–not even resellers–about the black box GOOG fuel that is the pride of Wall Street. After all, Google can only promise “no ceiling to monetization,” if it steadfastly maintains its Google-centric, non-transparent, advertisers always bid up their own rate cards for the greater Google good, AdWords blind auction “democracy” sham.

Savvy search engine advertising agency specialists understand all to well that Google NEVER allows for an actual win-win-win SEM game, as Aaron Goldman, VP, Marketing & Strategic Partnerships, Resolution Media of Omnicom Media, discussed yesterday at the Digital Media Measurement conference in New York City.

Goldman echoed what I have been consistently presenting here at Insider Chatter: Google’s win-win-win spiel is but a convenient user-friendly cover for an impenetrable Google pricing scheme that leaves advertisers in a perpetual Google-centric cloud, fretting over Google’s undecipherable ”quality” calculations and Google’s GOOG monetization comes first blind bidding machinations.

I asked Goldman if advertisers will soon wise up and demand that Google not only treat them with the respect which ought to be due from a media platform soliciting business from them, but also call Google’s “transparency” bluff and allocate their ad dollars elsewhere, unless Google ceases to fuel its oversized proifit margins at the expense of marketers’ and agencies’ own shareholders’ backs.

The Google bandwagon is in no apparent immediate danger.

SEE: Yellow Pages Get Reprieve? The Myth of King Google Local Advertising ROI

MORE: Reach Local Advertising? How Google Squeezes SEMs and AdWords Buyers and
Local Ad Sales War: Why Google is a Guaranteed Winner and
Google AdWords Plus Box: Local CPC Bidding War Unleashed! and
Google Apps & Maps: Enterprise and Local Business STILL Missing and
Local Advertising Online: SMEs Hold the Billion Dollar Keys, ILM ANALYSIS and
Google Zeitgeist: $200 University Payola AdWords Scam and
How Google AdSense FAILS Better Business Bureau and
Frugal Google.org: How NOT To Save the World On $159,000 a Day

PLUS: Facebook To Particls: What IS Your Data Portability End Game?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Spot Runner has acquired GlobeShooter videographers network, continuing to strengthen a portfolio for competing against Google. At the same time, however, Spot Runner is selling up a storm on behalf of arch rival Google.  

Is $200 billion market cap Internet juggernaut Google a direct competitor to startup Spot Runner, a Web-based television advertising production and media buying venture? I asked Nick Grouf, CEO, Spot Runner, just that almost one year ago. Grouf responded with a resounding “You got it.”

I chatted with Grouf on the heels of Google’s public acknowledgement that it is “running a small, early phase trial” of a cable TV ad delivery system last year. The Spot Runner claim to fame is: “the first Internet-based ad agency that makes it easy and affordable for local businesses to advertise on TV.”  Not surprisingly, SpotRunner did not welcome the Google television advertising initiative.

Grouf’s public reaction to the Google announcement of its entry into television advertising was to warn consumers of a nefarious Googleplex:

“Watching people watching TV,” is how Grouf characterized the prospective Google targeted TV advertising platform to me. Google will seek to leverage knowledge of viewership habits, Grouf believes, by using set-top box data collected without explicit consent of subscribers to “target ads according to the viewer.” Google’s end-game? Manipulate viewer data to sell ads at a higher price, Grouf indicated to me.

Interesting then that Grouf’s Spot Runner is now a proud seller of Google products, even as Spot Runner widens its sphere of operations with Google looming ever larger as the key competitor to beat. Spot Runner nevertheless has joined the ever growing ranks of would be Google killers that do their darndest to help Google’s core business grow ever unstoppable!

Spot Runner’s general ambitions are Googley indeed:

Revolutionize the way advertising is created, targeted, bought and sold, focusing on automating many of the more inefficient aspects of the advertising process and creating turnkey ways for busineses of all sizes to access creative and media planning and buying services.

Spot Runner even wants to help with buying Google services! Want a Search Ad with your TV ad?

Let the Spot Runner Search experts focus on the complexities of search advertising so you can focus on running your business.

In other words, let Spot Runner drive more business to Google AdWords! Why not, every one else wants to do it too! SEE: Yellow Pages Get Reprieve? The Myth of King Google Local Advertising ROI

MORE: Reach Local Advertising? How Google Squeezes SEMs and AdWords Buyers and
Local Ad Sales War: Why Google is a Guaranteed Winner and
Google AdWords Plus Box: Local CPC Bidding War Unleashed! and
Google Apps & Maps: Enterprise and Local Business STILL Missing and
Local Advertising Online: SMEs Hold the Billion Dollar Keys, ILM ANALYSIS and
Google Zeitgeist: $200 University Payola AdWords Scam and
How Google AdSense FAILS Better Business Bureau and
Frugal Google.org: How NOT To Save the World On $159,000 a Day

ALSO: Why Zynga, NOT Scrabulous, Has a Lucky Facebook Charm

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

I headlined earlier this week: Kelsey: You’ll Still Have Yellow Pages To Kick Around Some More. Kelsey CEO Neal Polachek now underscores that yes, Yellow Pages will live another day, or two.

Polachek’s Scrooge worthy “Christmas Story” of his car being rammed, his house being infested by vermin and his commode refusing to perform, has a happy Yellow Pages ending. Polachek shares that he turned to his “phone book” NOT to the World Wide Web to find eager, ready to serve auto repair, pest control and plumbing professionals.

BUT, what about the Polachek family’s Festival Of Lights? WHERE did Neal turn to search for how to spend his Hannukah gelt on toys, apparel, dining out…? Typical searchers do their everday “look ups” at Google, as Yellow Pages know all to well.

Recession Hits AT&T Online: Kelsey Local Search Advertising Predictions Too?, however, I analyzed earlier this week, underscoring the persistent roadblocks that continue to thwart en masse online advertising adoption on the part of local businesses.

Nevertheless, Kelsey analysts’ 2008 predictions echo persistent conventional local wisdom of a seemingly preordained inevitablity of “big increases in local search inventory” and an unstoppable victory of the new, (purportedly) more rational Web model over the old, (supposedly) frustratingly irrational print directory framework:

In the past, small and medium-sized businesses have protected their print Yellow Pages investment at the expense of other media. Given the structural changes in the local ad market, we believe the next downturn will favor media choices that are more flexible and provide a lower cost per lead than print directories, which would signal a profound shift: the Kelsey Yellow Pages point man, Charles Laughlin.

In the long term, we remain bullish that online and mobile products will bring in better than one-to-one conversion rates because of their superior return on investment: the Kelsey online verticals evangelist, Peter Krasilovsky.

BUT, are the Google inspired claims that an online ad spend is structurally inherently better than an offline one bankable? NO, not for the legions of single store, owner/operator local merchants that comprise the long and challenging sales cycle bulk of the ever elusive, but big, local business advertising opportunity.

Google’s superiority is clear on one front: Its ability to envelope a Google-centric, non-transparent, advertisers bid up their own rate cards, not marketer friendly, black box GOOG fuel money making machine in claims of irreproachable “accountability” and unbeatable “pay (only) for performance,” which even analysts willingly succumb to.

The big, bad Google “performance” ROI myth is that the “performance” being sold is a click, NOT a sale. The supposed impending holy grail of Pay Per Call products also is based on “performance” ROI myths: Advertiser costs are driven up for the extra perceived “accountability,” but the “performance” being sold is a call, still NOT a sale.

A call may be more valuable than a click, BUT it is also not a true performance metric for the only advertising result that counts at the end of the local merchant day: A local sale.

The Kelsey Group continues to hail the power and potential of call tracking: Polachek seized his Yellow Pages to the holiday rescue adventure to plug the up sell service to a Yellow Pages advertiser. Here at Insider Chatter, however, I WARN local merchants of the perils of call tracking as it is currently packaged and sold.

1-800 Pay-Per-Call: Marchex Buys VoiceStar, $4 billion Local Advertising Bonanza? I anlayzed in August.

The big, bad ”secret” dark side of the pay-per-call opportunity is that local advertisers often loose exposure of their REAL phone numbers by accepting call-tracking with random vendor supplied 800 numbers, as the Citysearch specs for its Pay For Performance-Calls product indicate:

Merchants are charged a fee per call and when an advertising cap is reached the toll free number (which appears throughout the site) is removed and replaced with the local, non-metered number…Citysearch provides a toll free number wherever the local merchant’s contact information appears: PFP ads, search results, merchant information page, and/or Best Of Citysearch listing.

LOCAL MERCHANT ROI PROBLEMS?

Customers jot down the toll free number to call another time, but end up unable to reach the merchant because the “ad cap” has been reached?

Customers print out the merchant info page for an out of town trip, but end up unable to reach the merchant because the “ad cap” has been reached?

Customers want to call the merchant a year later but don’t have the merchant’s real phone number…

The REAL bottom line local advertising problem? Old media or new, from Yellow Pages to Google, media companies spend their money and their energy in trying to PROVE to local merchants that their ad products are good for their businesses, rather than making sure they actually are.

MORE: Frugal Google.org: How NOT To Save the World On $159,000 a Day and
Reach Local Advertising? How Google Squeezes SEMs and AdWords Buyers and
Yellow Pages Trash Talking: The SEO Dog in the Google Local Fight and
Google AdWords Plus Box: Local CPC Bidding War Unleashed! and
Google Apps & Maps: Enterprise and Local Business STILL Missing and
Local Advertising Online: SMEs Hold the Billion Dollar Keys, ILM ANALYSIS 
Google Beware: Facebook Takes Local Advertising Gloves Off, ILM REPORT and
Judy’s Book: What’s On Sale? WE ARE! Ten Reasons Why and
Spot Runner Sells For Rival Google: Local SEM Bandwagon Grows

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

ReachLocal forms strategic alliance with Google? Despite the creative PR positioning, the $68 million venture capital backed reseller of all major search engines’ text ads has simply gained the “privilege” of sporting an “authorized” Google AdWords reseller badge!

How is it that Zorik Gordon, Co-Founder and CEO, has been able to bank $68 million in financing WITHOUT such a “strategic alliance” with the number one supplier of search ads? ReachLocal has long been reselliing AdWords. Its new “official” Google reseller status comes on the heels of Google making a concerted push to bolster its third-party local field sales force for AdWords, cost-free to Google!

I have long underscored: Local Ad Sales War: Why Google is a Guaranteed Winner

While conventional blogosphere wisdom hails Google AdWords reseller deals as win-win-wins, it is Google, as usual, that is the BIGGEST winner of all:

Local merchants get the “hand holding” they need to get online, aka on Google?
Online directional media properties get the local ad fulfilment they need, from competitor Google?
Google gets a massive influx of local AdWords business, risk, and cost, free. YAY, for Google!

Local merchants may actually be on the losing end of the Google stick, perhaps couging up a 20% AdWords premium for the joy of “holding hands” with third-party sales reps, accordng to top Google exec, Sukhinder Singh-Cassidy.

While YellowPages.com self-describes itself as “a leading local search and Internet Yellow Pages destination” its business model includes strengthening the number one local search threat, Google, by re-directing in-house YellowPages.com SMB advertiser dollars to the Googleplex AdWords money-making machine.

Most ingeniuous of all for GOOG: Google gains big, new AdWords dollars from the authorized resellers themselves, slugging it out competing for Google “Sponsored Links” in competing to resell Google “Sponsored Links”! What’s more: They must also compete against guaranteed AdWords winner, self-dealer Google!

The not so virtuous Google rules AdWords circle: A search at Google for “local ads” yields Google.com as the prime, number one “Sponsored Link,” pushing “Google Local Advertising,” while ReachLocal and YellowPages.com bid their own AdWords CPC rates up, fighting against each other AND Google for the honor of reselling Google’s own product ON A COMMISSION FREE BASIS!

WHEW! Doesn’t sound like a $68 million worthy venture model to me!

Google, of course, prides itself on NOT doing business the old fashioned way, i.e., paying commissions to resellers. I dissect the Google AdSense BAD commission play in How Google AdSense FAILS Better Business Bureau. 

MORE: Google AdWords Plus Box: Local CPC Bidding War Unleashed! and Google Zeitgeist: $200 University Payola AdWords Scam 

ALSO: Is SEO the New Internet Porn? Lessons From Ning and Google and Sex On Ning: Sponsored By Public Service Google and Google Joins Blogosphere in Mocking Wikia Search: Jimmy Wales Defiant

PLUS: Web 2.0 Social Power Grab: Will Faraday Media Open Up? and Henry Blodget Braces For ‘Harder Times’: Silicon Alley Insider ‘Screwed’? and Kelsey: You’ll Still Have Yellow Pages To Kick Around Some More

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Google Zeitgeist 2007? If Google says so! After all, Google’s “methodology” is whatever Google says it is, to itself:

We studied the aggregation of billions of search queries people conducted on Google.

YAY? No Google rhyme, reason, or numerical quantification! Plenty of “Google Trends,” though, a Google Labs “entertainment” product:

Our graphs are based on aggregated data from millions of searches done on Google over time. And the results Google Trends displays are produced entirely by an automated formula. As an additional measure, Google Trends only returns results for terms that receive a significant amount of search traffic. The data Google Trends producres may contain inaccuracies for a number of reasons, including data-sampling issues and a variety of approximations that Trends makes use of. We hope you find this service entertaining, but you propably don’t want to write your Ph.D. dissertation on this information.

REALLY? Google’s promise to organize ALL the world’s information so it is universally accessible and useful for ALL apparently does NOT apply to the information Google.com obtains, tracks and records, from its users!

Google cheerfully assures, though: “No matter how much changed throughout the course of the year, we found time to ponder a few age-old questions…’what is love?’

Age-old Google-centric questions are also alive and well this end of year holiday period…’how can we scam the U.S. population with shady AdWords sales schemes?’

The Google spin machine has outdone itself to end out 2007: “The Google Online Marketing Challenge!”

Remember Google’s $10 Local Search Pipe Dream: Slave Wages to Squeeze Yellow Pages? Of course not, because the “Google Local Business Referral Represenative Program” obviously went NO WHERE!

I underscored in August, if Google were to pay market wages for a national sales force calling on local businesses, it would not have the super-duper profit margins that make it the darling of Wall Street, and serve to finance its multi-billion dollar acquisitions. The Googley local ad sales “solution”? Offer slave wages to U.S. residents: $2-$10 for hours of labor intensive one-on-one cold-calling, prospecting, ad creative development and sales closing. 

The Googleplex is so enamored with itself that it actually believes it can get away with solicting U.S. adults with a pennies on the dollar pitch. The Google Local Search $10 pipe dream, however, yielded nothing but lead feet!

NOW, Google is scamming the entire university world–professors and students of all genres– intruding upon the sacred realm of academia by hampering education and exploiting academics with the objective of hawking AdWords and recruiting Google customers!

The global winners and their professor will receive a trip to the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California to meet with the team that developed AdWords. In addition, regional winners and their professor will receive a trip to their local Google office.

All winning students, professors and institutions will receive recognition through the competition website and Google merchandise. All students will receive certificates of participation.

the business must receive and agree to the ‘Letter to Businesses’ (to be supplied to all students in their Competition Pack) and meet with the student group to explain its business and online marketing. Ideally the business will take an active interest in the campaign, such as providing feedback on the proposed campaign strategy, interim campaign results and campaign changes.

Google should be reasonably well established where the business has customers. With more people running search queries on Google, the likelihood is greater that your advertising will receive a sufficient amount of impressions and clicks. If Google is not well known in your region, you may have trouble competing on a level playing field with other, more established regions.

As Google’s flagship advertising product, setting up and running an AdWords account is simple. You and your students will have ample AdWords material in the Competition Pack sent to all registered professors. All things equal, the more you know about AdWords, the more fun for your students and you, and the better their chances to win.

Student teams will receive voucher codes worth US $200 to run their three-week campaigns. Details on setup of competition AdWords accounts will be available in the Competition Pack sent to all registered professors and students.

SUCH IS THE REAL GOOGLE ZEITGEIST: A $200 BILLION MARKET CAP CORPORATION CORRUPTING UNIVERSITY CURRICULUMS TO FURTHER BALLOON ITS OWN COFFERS.

ALSO: Reid Hoffman: LinkedIn About Face (book) and Google Knol: The End of Google.com, NOT Wikipedia and Gawker: Will Nick Denton PAY For Media Respectability? and Digg: TechCrunch Bails on Arrington Web 2.0 Fave

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN