October 20th, 2006
Is Google hiding the radio star? Google silent on dMarc Broadcasting in Q3
Last June, I shared with the world Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s vision for personalized radio ads, and his need for a “pair of pants, in “Google targets GPS-based in-car personalized advertising”:
Schmidt believes that when he is listening to the radio in his car, radio ads should personally address him about his needs. For example, while driving past a clothing store, a radio ad should remind Eric that he needs a pair of pants and instruct him to turn left at the upcoming clothing store….
While Schmidt predicted a realization of his vision within the next one to two years, he did not share his vision for how the Google owned dMarc Broadcasting, a "digital solutions provider for the radio broadcast industry," would enable such digital ad delivery via car radios. Google acquired dMarc in January to bring "radio advertising to Google AdWords advertisers.”
Nine months after the dMarc acquisition, an eternity in “the entire cycle of Google,” Schmidt neglected to let the world know during its Q3 earnings call yesterday how he is proceeding in his quest for a “pair of pants,” and the $20 billion radio advertising market.
Why was Google silent on its $1.13 billion 2006 diversification acquisition? During the Q2 earnings call, Schmidt indicated dMarc was on track to selling up a radio advertising storm:
The dMarc team itself is fully integrated. We’re expanding it both in engineering and sales. They’re on an integration schedule of about three months from now, so every week there are more milestones, and they’re working very hard. It’s very exciting.
Schmidt showed no excitement yesterday for dMarc. The $1.13 billion acquisition was not touted as part of the “sum of these five things” fueling Google growth, performance and opportunities:
users, ads, the diversity of our business, the blizzard of new product launches, and the partnership strategy which is in full force, has delivered great, great results and we're very, very pleased with them.
It is not surprising that Google is not drawing attention to its offline diversification efforts; Google has not been able to show success, as I point out in “Will Google ever build another billion dollar business?”
In “3 key questions for Google CEO Eric Schmidt” I ask “How will you revolutionize the decades old radio industry via a legacy radio advertising company?”
Schmidt apparently can’t answer the question. His concluding, inspirational look forward to Q4 yesterday only spoke to Google Web-based opportunities, not its diversification efforts:
What I wanted to do is to finish by saying that we are in many ways crossing into another era here of what it will be possible to do with the Internet. We have gone from web search, various other forms of applications to now literally being able to do business, life, entertainment, especially with the integration of video, on the net. This is a very, very powerful, powerful way in which many, many companies, many, many users, many, many advertisers will use.
But will they be using the radio, via dMarc Broadcasting?
ALSO SEE "Google acqusitions: dMarc Broadcasting vs. YouTube Broadcast Yourself"
