Big Brother Google
April 18th, 2007 | Garrett MannWhile you were sleeping, Google made a move that solidifies its position as a media industry giant. Late Friday afternoon, Google announced that it was purchasing DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion, double what they paid for YouTube. Google beat Yahoo! and Microsoft to the punch in a true end-game move that extends its dominance in search to display advertising, essentially giving them ownership of a significant portion of the online advertising industry.
But they have not just stopped at online. This deal comes on the heels of aggressive partnerships to distribute the Google AdSense model to offline sources such as radio and TV, opportunities created in part by another Google acquisition, dMarc, a broadcast advertising management platform they purchased in 2006.
As Google ventures into Orwellian territory (see this list of 17 Google acquisitions over the last few years), it will be interesting to see what kind of impact it will make on both media buying and ROI measurement for the industry as a whole. My senses tell me that it will be significant.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Does anyone see the double click deal as not
as interesting as you might think? Just looks like
an inventory acquisition strategy to me. Ideas?
April 19th, 2007 at 9:35 am
I believe it’s got more to do with fixing a broken industry. Yes, banners, etc. are now selling more than print, but we’ve known for some time that cpm is a poor way to advertise. Google has both pay per click and pay per action down - hence they can remake the market. They’re even getting into helping advertisers optimize their landing pages with their Website Optimization Tool.
I think things will be very interesting for a while…
August 24th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Big Brother Google, I agreed it is a wonderful thing acquiring companies with a view of consolidating your position in the industry but acquisition comes with challenges and most times unresolveable carry-over opeartional, administrative and client relationship problems that if no adequate due diligence was carry out the acquirer may not live to celabrate a year after.
My concern for Google is not acquiring or buying out any other competitor but would they have technical depth, financial muscle and administrative know - how to still commend in the IT generational evolution and still remain relevant in the sector.
I think they would have so much work to do that if adequate systems and mechinery are not put in place, maybe someone somewhere may one day acquire the current acquirer…it is just for a season…let them have fun