A bit of a debate brewing over just how poised the big kahuna
â€" consumer packaged goods marketing budgets â€" are to shifting into online advertising. Gian Fulgoni has clearly made the case that it’s about to explode, for all the reasons
he’s been discussing the past couple of days at the Search Insider Summit. But Jordan Rohan isn’t so sanguine.
That’s the
discussion taking place during the first panel this morning, and it’s hard for me to figure out who’s actually winning.
Rohan agrees
that CPG spending will increase online, and especially in search. His question is by how much?
“I feel like it’s going to take a lot
longer,†he predicted. “I’m sure the percentage of dollars from CPG spent on search will go up. I don’t know if that should go to 2 % or to 5%, but it’s probably not
going to 15%,†he said.
His main rationale is that search simply has not proven its ability to generate “brand appeal†and
“attributes†the way a hundred years of traditional media case studies have proven over time. He thinks the current growth in search is coming more from local advertisers and the long
tail, and that big packaged goods marketers like Kraft just haven’t embraced that yet.
“I think we have tot be more precise about
exactly which bucket of advertising search is drawing from,†Rohan suggested.
Fulgoni didn’t necessarily disagree, but the veteran
CPG analyst said he still can’t figure out why big consumer marketers still spend so much on newspapers, for example. One theory, he has, is that “It’s a mass marketing industry,
and they think of every reader as being a potential buyer.â€
Fulgoni suggested that the best alternative would actually be to utilize direct
mail to target people who are not online, with a “great search†campaign to target the ones that are online.