Google is poised to become No. 1 -- again. Long dominant as the online search advertising giant, Google is on track to become the dominant player in the online display advertising business too, according to estimates released late Wednesday by online stats masters eMarketer. Actually, according to the eMarketer report, Google will achieve digital marketplace triple play -- becoming Madison Avenue’s top supplier for three digital marketing channels: search, display and mobile. “Google now holds more share than any other company in each of the U.S. search, display and mobile advertising markets,” eMarketer reports -- noting that the display milestone is based on Google overtaking previous No. 1 supplier Facebook, which only overtook long-standing display ad champ Yahoo last year. The leap-frogging is based on a projection that Google will take in $2.31 billion in U.S. display ad revenues this year, a 38.5% increase from 2011, and giving it a 15.4% share of the total display marketplace. Facebook, by comparison, will earn $2.16 billion in U.S. display ad revenues this year. And while that also is an impressive rate of growth -- jumping 24.4% over 2011 -- it’s not enough of a share gain to offset Google’s momentum. Facebook, however, picked up 0.3 points of market share to further distance itself from third-place Yahoo with a 14.4% share of the U.S. display ad marketplace. Yahoo will drop to 9.3% in 2012, down from 11.0% last year, and a dominant 14.0% of display ad budgets in 2010. Microsoft retains its fourth-place position, dropping 0.4 points to a 4.5% share, while AOL remains No. 5, declining 0.7 points to 3.6% of the online display ad marketplace. Google’s and Facebook’s ascendency comes amid a rapidly expanding online display ad marketplace, thanks in part to Facebook’s push. eMarketer estimates the total U.S. online display marketplace will be $14.98 billion this year, up 21.5% from $12.33 billion last year. Looking forward, eMarketer expects Google to continue to build share of display ad budgets, expanding to a 21.2% of display in two years, and increasing its lead over projected No. 2 Facebook’s estimated 15.5% share in 2014 by a wide margin. eMarketer said its estimates were “driven by the expansion of both Google and Facebook as advertising platforms; the continued health of banner spending due to expansion of inventory, aided by mobile growth; and increased spending growth on digital video advertising, especially YouTube.” Despite that growth, eMarketer has actually reduced its projections downward slightly from its previous display forecast due to a “mix of lower prices for display advertising on ad networks combined with the reluctance of some major brands to make extra-large investments in digital display advertising.” “There are several factors underpinning Google's ascent to market leader,” eMarketer noted, adding, “including the continued strength of its ad network, video advertising on YouTube and mobile display advertising on AdMob.”
Google continues to make updates to its DoubleClick platform that automates and streamlines workflow processes. The company has detailed several changes it made to support display media buyers and publishers. A new version of DoubleClick Bid Manager will launch in October. Built with the assets of the Invite Media demand-side platform Google acquired in 2010, the platform should give marketers about 16% more inventory, since it reduces the latency that can occur when connecting with other exchanges. Google also upgraded DoubleClick Studio to improve the workflow between media and creative agencies. Nearly 80% of creative agencies using DoubleClick Studio have already transitioned to the new version, gaining a more responsive user interface, according to the company. Reseach firm eMarketer estimates Google will earn more U.S. display advertising revenue in 2012, compared with any other company, topping the market with 15.4% share. Google is expected to generate $2.3 billion in U.S. display ad revenue this year, up 38% from nearly $1.7 billion in 2011, eMarketer estimates. Facebook, by comparison, will earn about $2.2 billion in U.S. display ad revenue this year -- up 24% from $1.7 billion last year. On Tuesday, Sean Harvey, Google business product manager, explained the launch of Audience Extension in DoubleClick for Publishers in a blog post. The tool gives marketers one place to manage and optimize buying across owned, operated and external inventory. It also provides bid management integrated in the ad server and cross-inventory performance reporting and analytics. In the United Kingdom, Google will make available a feature called Active View, a metric to measure viewable impressions. The Brand Activate Initiative announced in the U.S. last April, advances the rollout in the U.K., along with measurement tool, Active GRP (gross rating point), which imitates offline analytics of media campaigns, occupancies the rollout. Neal Mohan, vice president of display advertising products at Google, said the new ads have seen six to eight times the engagement rate, compared with regular display ads.
A company that sells gifts and novelty items has sued Google for trademark infringement and unfair competition for using the phrase "the playground is open" in ads for the new Nexus 7 tablet.Market Street Press -- which sells products like deskpads, puzzle cubes, USB key chains and kiosks for tablets -- alleges in court papers that it has used "the playground is open" since 2008. Market Street applied for a trademark in the term earlier this year.The company argues that Google's use of the phrase as a tagline "is likely to cause confusion, mistake and deception among consumers" about whether it's affiliated with Market Street.The retailer adds that Google's use of the same slogan will "overwhelm and swamp" Market Street's ability to continue to use the phrase, given that Google is the bigger company.Market Street is seeking an injunction against Google and monetary damages.Advertising law expert Rick Kurnit says it's unlikely that consumers will confuse Google's Nexus 7 with Market Street's products. But the slogan still could pose a problem for Market Street because consumers won't realize that it used the phrase first, he notes. In short, Market Street could "come across as a copycat" if it continues to use the phrase, says Kurnit, a partner in Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz.He adds that lawsuits challenging slogans often settle given that ads -- unlike product names -- tend to have a short shelf-life. "For the most part, slogans can coexist, because they're used temporarily for an ad campaign," he says.Google declined to comment, other than to say it hadn't yet seen the lawsuit. The case, filed last week, is pending in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
It wasn’t long ago that Google had virtually no display ad business. Remarkably, the historically search-focused company is now expected to earn more U.S. display ad revenues than any other company this year. The new prediction, from eMarketer, puts Google’s share of the display ad market at 15% by year’s end. If accurate, Google is poised to command more share than any other company in each of the U.S. search, display and mobile advertising markets. All told, Google is expected to take in $2.3 billion in U.S. display ad revenues, this year -- up 38% from nearly $1.7 billion in 2011, according to eMarketer. Facebook, meanwhile, is on pace to earn about $2.2 billion in U.S. display ad revenues in 2012 -- up 24% from $1.7 billion last year. Yahoo -- the longtime leader before Facebook topped it last year -- will see its share fall further. Overall, the U.S. display ad market will grow 21% to $15 billion from $12 billion in 2011, eMarketer forecasts. The research firm attributes the continued growth of both Google and Facebook as advertising platforms, along with the continued health of banner spending. That trend, in turn, has been largely due to an expansion of inventory, aided by mobile growth and increased spending growth on digital video advertising -- YouTube in particular. As eMarketer notes, its overall forecast for display has been slightly reduced from the previous one to reflect the mix of lower prices for display advertising on ad networks, combined with the reluctance of some major brands to make extra-large investments in digital display advertising. Regarding Google’s success, eMarketer cites several factors underpinning the company’s ascent to market leader, including the continued strength of its ad network, video advertising on YouTube and mobile display advertising on AdMob. Yet the company's newfound lead also comes as Facebook ad revenues have fallen short of expectations set in February, when eMarketer predicted that U.S. display revenues at Google would trail Facebook just slightly this year. eMarketer cut its ad forecast for Facebook earlier this month.
People don’t trust search ads. At least, 64% of people don’t trust search ads. Apparently, search is not unique. According to the same research, nobody trusts ads of any kind. That’s not really surprising, given that it’s advertising. Its entire purpose is to make us suddenly want crap we don’t need. Small wonder we don’t trust it. But you know what we do trust? The opinions of our friends. Nothing I should have said up to this point should come as a shock to anyone reading this column. The only thing I found mildly surprising here was that we had such a low level of trust in search ads. Typically, search advertising is better aligned with intent and less hyperbolic in nature. But, apparently, we marketers have bastardized even the purity of search to the point where it’s less trusted than TV ads (gasp!) So, to recap, we don’t trust ads, we do trust friends. This seems to present a simple solution: combine the two so that pesky advertising can bask in the halo effect of social endorsement. You’ve been hearing about this for many years now, including several Search Insider columns from my fellow pundits and myself. So, given that we’ve been testing the waters for sometime, why haven’t we got this advertising/social thing locked down yet? Why are Facebook stockholders wailing over their deflated portfolios? Why are we still stumbling out of the starting gate in our efforts to marry the magic of social and search? This shouldn’t be rocket science. In fact, it’s more complex than rocket science. It’s psychology; it’s sociology and at least a handful of other “ologies.” When we talk about combing search and social -- or for that matter, any type of advertising and social -- we’re talking about trying to understand what makes humans tick. If we talk about the simplest integration of the two, where social acts as a type of reinforcing influence that is subordinate to the primary act of searching, it’s not hard to follow the train of thought. We search for something, and in the results, we see some type of social badge that indicates how our social connections feel about the options presented to us. In this case, intent is already engaged. Social just serves to grease the decision wheels, helping us differentiate between our options. This type of integration can easily be seen on Google (Plus integration) as well as vertical engines such as TripAdvisor or Yelp. But that type of integration doesn’t really fire the imagination of marketers and get their market acquisition juices flowing. It’s just hedging your bets on a market that’s already pretty easy to identify and capture. It does nothing to open up new markets. And it’s there where things get muddy. The problem is this niggling question of intent. Somehow, something needs to activate intent in the mind of the prospect. It’s here where we truly need to be persuaded, moving our mental mechanisms from disengaged to engaged. To do this, you need to reverse the order of importance between the two channels. Social recommendation needs to be in the driver’s seat, hopefully engaging and moving prospects to the point where they initiate a search. And that’s a much bigger hurdle to get over. Once the order is reversed, the odds of success plummet precipitously. Here are just a few of the hurdles that have to be cleared: Trust – Whichever channel is chosen to deliver the social recommendation, it has to be received with trust. This factor can be affected by how the recommendation is presented, the social proof that accompanies it, the aesthetic value of the interface, and the recipient’s attitude towards the channel itself. There is no lack of nuanced detail to consider here. Alignment of Interest – When the recommendation is delivered, it must be of interest to the recipient. This relies on an accurate assessment of context and intent. Whatever the targeting channel, there has to be a pretty good chance of delivering the right message at the right time. Social Modality – So, let’s assume you’ve figured out how to get the first two things right – you are using a trusted channel and you’ve done a good job of targeting. You’re not home free yet. Here’s the thing – we don’t act the same way all the time. We adapt our behaviors to fit the social circumstances we are currently in. There are predetermined modes of behavior that we conform to. It’s why we act one way with our coworkers and another way with our children. It’s why it’s okay to tip a waiter in a restaurant, but not okay to tip your mother-in-law after Sunday dinner. This modality is carried over from the real world to the virtual world of social networks. And it’s very difficult to determine what mode a prospect may be in. But it can make all the difference in the success of a socially targeted advertising message. The Fight for Attention – This is the big one. Even if you do everything else right, your odds for successfully capturing the attention of a prospect and holding it for long enough to generate actual consideration of your product are not nearly as good as you might hope. You’d probably do better at a Vegas craps table. It all depends on what the incumbent’s intent is. What brought her to the online destination where you managed to intercept her? How critical is it that she finish what she’s currently doing? How engaged is she in the task at hand? With the first example of search/social integration (search first, social second), the odds for success are pretty high, because intent has already been established. You’re just using social endorsement to expedite a process that’s already in motion. But in the second example (social first, search second), we’re talking about an entirely different ball game. You have to derail the incumbent intent and replace it with a new one. Think of it as the difference between pushing a car downhill that’s already started to roll, and pushing the same car from a standing start up the hill. No wonder we’re having some difficulty getting things rolling.
The online video business might be enjoying a record number of viewers, but the number of ads seen hasn’t returned yet to the highs hit in the spring. In comScore’s just-released monthly report on video viewing, the measurement firm said a record 188 million Americans watched 37.7 billion online videos in August. That’s a rise from 184 million Americans checking out online videos in July. The trouble is, the numbers of ads viewed in August was about the same as the month before, clocking in at 9.5 billion video ads, on par with July. The ads-viewed figure has not shot past its previous high of 11 billion in June, or even the 10 billion mark that it hit for the first time in May. However, the downward dip for ads viewed may be due to the fact that summer is a slower time for TV viewing, and TV shows often command more ads online. The real test for the health of the online video ad market will come when the September numbers release and reveal whether viewers tuned into more ad-supported online TV shows now that the fall TV season has begun. The top ten online video content properties for the month of August were Google-owned YouTube, Yahoo sites, Microsoft sites, Vevo, Facebook, AOL, Viacom Digital, NDN, Grab Media and Amazon sites. By ads viewed, the top properties were Google-owned YouTube, Brightroll, Adap.tv, Hulu, SpotXchange, TubeMogul, Tremor Video, Specific Media, Auditude and Videology. YouTube inched up in ads viewed in August, finishing the month with 1.7 billion ads viewed, a rise from 1.5 billion in July. Also worth noting is that Brightroll, Adap.TV and Hulu all logged more than 1 billion ads viewed as well, meaning four properties each delivered more than 1 billion ads in August. Video ads comprised about 20 percent of all videos viewed and 1.4 percent of all minutes spent watching online video, comScore said.
A long-running legal battle between the Authors Guild and Google won't end any time soon, thanks to a new court ruling. This week, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals granted Google's application to stay proceedings in the trial court while the company appeals an order allowing the authors to bring a class-action. That ruling means that a decision about the central question -- whether Google's ambitious book digitization project is protected by fair-use principles -- might not come for at least one year. The litigation stems from Google's decision to scan millions of books -- including books under copyright -- and make snippets available through its search engine. The Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers sued Google in 2005, alleging that the company infringed copyright with the initiative. Google has said from the beginning that its project is protected by fair-use principles. Nonetheless, several years ago Google agreed to a settlement that called for the company to fund a new book rights registry and then sell digital downloads (at prices it sets with the registry.) But U.S. Circuit Court Judge Denny Chin nixed that deal due to concerns that it would give Google a monopoly over “orphan works” -- works under copyright, but whose owners are unknown. Shortly after the deal was scuttled, the Authors Guild successfully asked Chin to allow the lawsuit to proceed as a class-action. Google then filed an appeal with the 2nd Circuit. The company says it will argue that class-action status isn't appropriate given that many authors are in favor of the project. Last month, Google asked Chin to delay trial proceedings pending a ruling from the appeals court about whether the case should be a class-action. But Chin denied that request. "A stay pending appeal would significantly delay the merits," he wrote. "The merits would have to be reached at some point in any event, and there simply is no good reason to delay matters further." Google subsequently asked the appellate court to stay the matter. The Authors Guild backed that request, arguing that a stay "will promote the orderly disposition of this case." That may be. Still, eight years is a long time to wait to learn whether scanning books from libraries is a legitimate fair use.