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November 29, 2006

Google Audio Ads Ready To Roll? Not in Direct Response Radio Advertising

Google Audio Ads, Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) foray into radio advertising, appears to be ready to roll...to nowhere new.

Donna Bogatin over at ZDNet is providing a first look at how Google is pitching advertisers on its new Google Audio Ads radio advertising offering. Donna has been able to obtain what appear to be Power Point slides that Google reps are using.

What's most interesting about this is... this is essentially the same pitch that dMarc Broadcasting is/was using. So our first reaction is "what's new?". We aren't seeing it.

In all fairness, we have done work with dMarc. We appreciate and applaud what they're trying to do. But the truth is that they aren't there yet. They can't deliver better rates than we can get through our remnant relationships - which we have for thousands of stations (not only 800) and networks across all of the top 150 markets (not just 19 of the top 25).

Seriously, if this is all Google is trying to do, there are other companies they could buy who are already doing it, arguably a lot better than Google can.

However, even if Google were to buy all of those companies, they'd still have the same issue those companies face, and that Google faces with its current plans: what about the two missing elements of creative development and media campaign profitability management? You can't get good at one without the other because it's the infrastructure and analysis underlying profitability management that enables knowledge-building required to learn what works and doesn't creatively.

The supposition being put forth seems to be that you can throw any ad up on the radio and it'll make so much money you don't need profitability management. Um, not on this planet. That's the problem with all of these initiatives that focus solely on cost. They do it at the exclusion of the other elements that are required for success in direct response radio advertising.

So we're left waiting to see how Google's plans to revolutionize radio advertising will live up to the hype that hovers around them like a fog bank on an early summer morning on Casco Bay. We expect there's more to come.

Posted by Jeff Small & Brett Astor at 01:38 PM | Permalink