Or, why can't we all just get along?
Is it just me or is there a big disconnect in the advertising world of late? I'm speaking of both online and offline advertising.
Take, for instance, Google. Isn't it a little odd that the world's foremost brand, the company challenging not only advertising revenues but the very model of advertising has yet to drop a dime on advertising? And they're hardly alone. Ebay, Napster, Yahoo in their early and supernova days spent nothing on advertising.
No wonder Madison Avenue has issues with Silicon Valley. That's a lot to have to swallow.
On the other side of it, I can't think of a single agency, not one, that doesn't have a flash site with all the requisite bells and whistles as their entry point to the Internet courtesy of their interactive division. It's what they know. It's where the money is. And because of that, it's what they advocate to their clients.
But it's not search.
And search is where the consumer starts. And it's where Google lives and continues to monetize the adspend.
It seems that neither is making the effort to understand the other while both have to tools, the means and the cause to do so.
And then, out of nowhere, there's Bridezilla. No big production budget. No big media spend. No flash web site. No paid search campaign. No Superbowl ad.
Neither Google nor the agency world was able to monetize that, though both shared in the buzz. (Google via YouTube and the agency world via Capital C, a Toronto marketing promotions agency.)
It's worth remembering that for online advertising, these are still very early days and revenue models can and probably will change.
Key to that change will be the search strategist. As Andrew Goodman of Traffick.com posited in a recent post, SEM Shops, Market Valuation, and "Strategy":
I happen to think search marketing is a fine training ground for the strategic mind. Of course, no small consulting firm is given the keys to the entire marketing strategy for a large client, but discounting for size, the influence of the search marketer is impressive. Look at all the data clients already let search marketers work with!
However, search itself has a long way to go before it will become sexy. And like Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley, SEO and SEM share too much in common to allow the disconnects that pervade prevail.
~ The (SEP) Guy