Even though Google doesn’t want to be an advertising agency, the goals they have for their clients mimic what Madison Avenue tries to accomplish each day.
We think Google has found something for ex-Ogilvy honcho Andy Berndt to do for the search advertising company. Based on some spots Google wants to fill, they want to accomplish the things an Ogilvy or other firm would like to do for a client.
Google has been searching for applicants via MediaBistro to fulfill roles in New York, Chicago, and Mountain View. These jobs in consumer advertising insights (nice title) will fuel a project called the Google Brand Accelerator (GBA).
“GBA will allow Google to consistently deliver the most efficient and effective digital platform upon which the world’s leading brands are built,” said the posting. “We will connect advertisers’ brand message to the target audience at the highest moment of relevance through innovative and accountable online marketing solutions that offer unmatched precision and scale.”
Though they cited GBA as something to become an “indispensable partner” for advertisers and agencies, it sounds an awful lot like a step toward shoving aside the ad agency middleman. Why use a third party when Google can accelerate your brand through its dominant position in online advertising?
Back in July, when a Google blogger inadvertently shattered any remaining illusions about Google as a business, Danny Sullivan had this to say about Google and advertising in the health industry:
To be safer, Google ought to get back to just selling space and not trying to be an ad agency to these groups. That’s what ad agencies do, and they aren’t hit by the burden of also having to run supposedly unbiased information resources.
What happens to unbiased information resources when part of your company is busy trying to accelerate the brands of cash-carrying advertisers? Google’s position on this should be illuminating.
