• Ad Age, Tuesday, June 5, 2007 11 AM

Major ad industry associations like the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4 As) expressed their concern over the recent spate of mergers and acquisitions in the industry--most notably the Google acquisition of DoubleClick, which it questioned in a joint letter to the Federal Trade Commission.

ANA President Bob Liodice said it's impossible right now to understand the effect of any of these deals on the industry. "The whole thing is moving very, very quickly," he said of the latest series of acquisitions, which include Google-Click, Right Media by Yahoo aQuantive by Microsoft, and 24/7 Real Media by WPP Group.

Google-DoubleClick will be the first to be scrutinized, and could set a precedent for the rest of the category, though the ANA is concerned about each of these deals. An unnamed research company said that $8 out of every $10 spent on third-party Web sites would be served by GoogleClick. That estimate is based on the assumption that in the market of nonsearch ads to third-party publishers, Google is responsible for 29% and DoubleClick 49%.

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