Is Google really in ad-trouble?
Chad M. Little gets our attention with an article, posted on adotas.com, in which he doubts the strategy Google implemented for its old-media infiltration. In fact, the article becomes the background for a larger and more in-depth analysis of the overall Google advertising strategy, both online and offline.
The readers who like details can find many of them in Little’s article, as well as in the New York Times, USA Today and BusinessWeek articles mentioned by Little as sources. My intention here is to provide the main ideas describing the situation Google seems to face, along with some of my own thoughts.
So, briefly put, the Internet giant meets resistance in the old media and noticeable competition in the web advertising world. Google’s way (similar to Yahoo!) of placing ads on the web is characterized by biased connection between searches and website content (mentioning potato chips on a computer chips website is one classic example) and both blindness and lack of control in the case of the advertiser, who doesn’t get to see or to choose the placements. Well ranked websites and obscure personal blogs are all equal in this equation. Firms like the Norwegian FAST and the American Quigo noticed this opportunity and took serious slices from Google’s cake, though Google’s officials declare they are not aware of loosing important clients.
On the other hand, Google’s lack of flexibility, transparency and control offered to clients seems to be part of the problem in its offline ad strategy. Apparently, it doesn’t work well with the model of traditional media, trying to impose its own business patterns. As Little says,
What Google has tried to do is leverage the sheer volume of advertisers that they control to gain access to the lucrative world of offline advertising. Advertiser volume alone, however, doesn’t appear to carry the same weight within the traditional media circles as it does online. […] there is a way for Google to leverage those relationships and successfully cross over into traditional media. […] Google should stay focused on their core competency of contextual search and invest in businesses that focus on the offline media categories they want to penetrate. […] With this approach, Google could utilize the expertise and old-media savvy of industry insiders and give the freedom and autonomy to do what they do best in the way that has proven to be successful.
So, in Little’s opinion, Google’s problem is rather one of attitude, not of technical adaptation. Giving up control, in favor of more autonomy for the advertisers, assuring more visibility and choice for them are indicated as the ingredients of a feasible solution. Will Google adapt? There’s no reason yet to think it won’t. Still, I guess we all have in mind the fact that any empire’s destiny is to crumble and fall, eventually.
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