Red Herring is reporting Google has acquired video game advertising firm, Adscape Media for $23 million. It’s unclear at this stage whether this is a just a move to buy a “few potentially interesting patents” or Google’s entry into in-game advertising.
From my own experience, I’m personally starting to question Google’s acquisition strategy. Now, I have no inside information, but I can relate their actions to what I went thru as part of Think Partnership (parent of the now defunct WebSourced).
The old management of THK decided the best way to grow the company was to acquire as many marketing and technology companies they could, show the market they were on the cutting edge and hopefully, grow the bottom line. Unfortunately, Think Partnership didn’t give much thought to how exactly they were going to make all of these acquired companies work with each other. Before I left in 2005, there was no direction and many of the acquired companies started grumbling that they felt as if they had been brought on with great promises, but then discovered no real strategy to the acquisition – does that sound like dMarc to you?
Anyway, fast forward a couple of years, and thankfully, THK has a new management group that is focusing on actually integrating the acquired companies – to what success, I don’t know – and appears to be back on track. Google might want to take a look at THK and learn from its lesson. Simply buying cool companies – because you can – means nothing, unless you actually take the time to figure out what you’re going to do with them.
Disclaimer – I guess I should point out that I do still own some THK shares and I also have one share of Google stock.
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About the Author
Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.
