Tag Archives: google

Okay, how about some bonus spots?

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Betsy Lazar –Executive Director of Advertising and Media Operations at GM– gave a keynote at the rcent Radio Advertising Bureau conference in Dallas. According to INSIDE RADIO, she was pretty specific in her advice to broadcasters;

“…doing business the old way won’t cut it. Pitching schedules of :30s won’t do it. What GM wants is ideas that show involvement by the station. Things that come from mining the listener database and exploiting the station website in fresh ways.”

Ad Age reports that GM “slashed ad spending by more than $600 million last year, a drop so stunning it should convince even the staunchest doubters that the age of mass-media marketing is going the way of the horse and buggy.”

In that same issue of INSIDE RADIO: Bank of America analyst Jonathan Jacoby admits his survey of 34 industry pros last week in Dallas is not statistically significant. But he says 43% of them (14-15 people) said they’ve “used or plan to use Google/dMarcto sell airtime.”

dMarc founders leave Google

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Looks like Google’s plans to reinvent the way radio ads are bought has hit a rough spot. Online Media Daily reports Chad and Ryan Steelberg, the founders of dMark, an automated radio ad placement company purchased by Google in January 2006, have left the company.

The brothers resigned amid reports of growing tension between dMarc, the company they founded, and Google over differing approaches to radio ad sales. There was also said to be tension over the limited remuneration dMarc could expect under the performance-based terms of its original deal with Google.

Google deal with CBS Radio imminent?

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Merrill Lynch broadcast analyst Jessica Reif Cohen expects Google will team with a CBS Radio in a wide-ranging advertising deal. In a nutshell, Google would allow advertisers to bid for radio airtime using some of the same functionality as its online sales tool. But again, no deal has been announced.

Cohen estimated that a Google deal to sell 10% of CBS Radio’s advertising inventory would generate approximately $200 million in revenues and that the upside for CBS would be two-fold: “1) attracting new (likely smaller) advertisers to its platforms a la Google’s experience with search, and 2) creating a more efficient sales model that reduces the friction/cost of selling advertising.” [LostRemote]

“Why local media companies should fear Google”

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This post by Terry Heaton made me flash on a Google search page with a “Pages from Missouri” button (or any of the states where we have networks):

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it easily accessible to everyone. This ought to be the mission of every local media company, for one day we will find a similar button on Google regardless of the zip code from which we are logging in.”

Will Google be able to cover state news (with audio, video, stills,etc) better than our networks? Blasphemy I know, but it doesn’t seem wise to assume that our little corner of the news/media world will be untouched by the changes happening all around us.

Good look at the Google Ad Creation Marketplace

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Can Google Audio Ads be as easy and effesctive as Google AdWords? That was the question Donna Bogatin (Digital Markets) put to André Bergeron, owner/operator of Babble-On Recording Studios. She wanted “a radio production talent insider take” on how the Google Ad Creation Marketplace will impact the radio advertising industry. Bergeron seems to know what he’s talking about.

“Dollar-A-Holler Radio ads have been around forever. The local Hi-Fi Store owner could always go into the local station and bark off a series of sale prices in shrill tones that would annoy anyone within earshot. This would be no different, really. There is so much more to effective messaging, to branding, to understanding how people listen to the radio than simply writing down “for all your underwear needs” and handing it off to Johnny promo voice to record.

Part of why people can’t stand listening to the radio is the quality of the ads, they’re, by most estimations, shouted, boring, and insultingly simplistic, and, if there are a lot of them, it just magnifies the mind-numbing nature of them.”

I think that sentence really sums it up. That reality will ultimately prove to be The Big Problem for radio going forward. Shitty commercials in an era when we no longer have to listen to them in order to hear the news and music we want.

Andre Bergeron emails an additional thought:

“Throughout a programming day, the station dresses itself with a carefully crafted image using music, personalities, promotions, etc – to create “a brand”, if you will. Then a stopset comes on and it’s like the advertisers are allowed to dress the station in clown’s clothes, leisure suites or horizontal stripes.”

How Google Audio Ads work (PowerPoint slides)

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The folks at ZDNet’s Digital Markets have some PowerPoint slides that illustrates how Google Audio Ads work. And this from Voices.com:

“Google has positioned the Audio Ads system to serve both top-level advertisers, as well as the advertising agencies themselves. The graphic also shows 75% of the transactions coming from the agencies, and only 25% from independent advertisers. This is likely because advertising agencies already have media planning and media buying personnel, not to mention existing relationships with local and regional radio stations.”

The lables in the little blue rectangles are: Radio Stations, Networks and Rep Firms. Which suggests that advertisers will simply have another option for placing their ads on radio stations. And if Google can make it easier or cheaper or more effective (i.e. feedback, reports, etc)… they’ve added value to the process.

Update: Google Audio Ads

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From Inside AdWords blog: “Over the last year, we’ve been working hard to integrate the dMarc advertising platform into Google AdWords. We’re happy to announce that the integration is now complete and we’ve recently begun a U.S. beta test of Google Audio Ads with a small group of AdWords advertisers.”

If you haven’t been keeping up, here’s how Google describes their Audio Ads:

“Google Audio Ads brings efficiency, accountability, and enhanced ROI to radio advertising by providing advertisers with an online interface for creating and launching radio campaigns. You’ll be able to target your customers by location, station type, day of the week, and time of day. After the radio ads are run, you will be able to view online reports that tell you exactly when your ad played.”

A couple of days ago, Mark Ramsey (Hear 2.0) pointed us to an application page on the Google website.

Ad Specialist Application — Thank you for your interest in joining the Google Ad Creation Marketplace. We’re looking for some of the top audio ad specialists to join our Ad Creation Marketplace – a searchable directory of talent to help AdWords advertisers to create radio advertisements. For advertisers new to the radio space, or who are starting a new campaign, the Marketplace provides an invaluable starting point for finding the talent they need.

So, I decide to buy some Google Audio Ads. I search the Google Ad Creation Marketplace database for someone to write and produce my spot. We agree on a price. I send some copy. They email back an MP3 file. I’m off to the races. Maybe. Mr. Ramsey is skeptical and I confess I am too. But if it works… it could have a profound change on how advertiser buy and place ads.

Update: According to News.com, the radio ads are running in more than 260 metropolitan markets, covering about 87 percent of the country

Why you didn’t get the business

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Mary Schmidt (“Business Developer, Marketing Troubleshooter”) explains why you didn’t get her business. Her original list grew so long she’s posting these little goodies in three parts. Here are a few of my favorites from her first batch:

4. Your web site looks abandoned. (Copyright 2004? Are you even still in business?)
5. Your web site doesn’t tell me how to call you.
6. You never, ever answer your phone. It always go to voice mail.
7. You did more talking than I did in our first meeting.
8. You insisted on going through your entire sales presentation, slide by slide, line by line – even when I said, “I already know that” and “Yes, I already saw that.”
9. You talk about “solutions” but never tell me how you’re going to solve my problem.
10. You’re “invisible.” Like it or not, showing up in a Google search (or not) is a credibility factor these days.
11. You only call or email when you’re trying to sell me something.
12. You think having my business card with my email address is the same as having my permission to flood my inbox with junk.
16. Your “free education seminar” was nothing more than a sales pitch

This should be required reading before every sales presentation. Thanks to David for the pointer.

Google (still) moving into radio

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“Web search leader Google Inc. is hiring scores of radio sales people and is spending heavily in a bid to expand its position in the $20 billion radio industry. Google spokesman Michael Mayzel said this week that the company will begin a public test of Google Audio Ads by the end of the year. Advertisers will be able to go online and sign up for targeted radio ads using the same AdWords system they use to buy Web search ads.” — Reuters

Should Google buy Clear Channel?

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Article in AdAge briefly explores that question. The phrase that jumped out of the story at me was, “automated sale of remnant ads.”

“Right now, through Google’s year-ago acquisition of dMarc, a radio systems company, it has been able to create an automated way to sell what is mostly remnant radio inventory, which remains unsold until the last minute. But, noted Mr. Bank, Google Audio is making several high-profile hires in the radio sales field in major radio markets. Now why, if Google Audio’s selling of remnant ad time is so automated, would there need to be so many high-priced radio ad sales folks.”

I’m pretty sure a big chunk of my salary for the past 20 years has come from acquiring and selling “remnant radio inventory.” Should companies that trade services for commercials on radio stations (we call it barter) be concerned about this? My guess is most station managers would rather have cash for his unsold commercials.

The Google-Clear Channel idea is an interesting one. CC has lot of stations and Google has figured some things out about advertising.