Madison Avenue not at all terrified of Google or its AdPlanner, OK?
Ad giant WPP Group's CEO Sir Martin Sorrell calls Google a "frenemy" because while Google plays nice with ad agencies for now, most everyone believes Google's ultimate goal is to cut such media holding companies out of the ad buying process by convincing marketers to use an as-of-yet-not-invented Google dashboard to purchase inventory straight from publishers. So when Google revealed the first iteration of this doomsday dashboard, calling it AdPlanner and describing it as a demographic targeting tool, we figured we'd hear worried whispers from our Madison Avenue sources. Not the case!
Asked to characterize the development as worrisome or welcome, an agency COO said "welcome." He said clients make their buying decisions on more than just the kind of raw data AdPlanner provides and that agencies are better at choosing good content brands will want to be seen as supporting than ad targeting technology is a making that content not matter. Another agency exec also said "welcome," because he's tired of metrics firms Nielsen and ComScore running the show.
[AdPlanner] Democratizes data and research to those smaller than us that couldn’t afford the $100K/year subscriptions, but doesn’t offer anything that hasn’t been done yet….
