Online Media Extends

By Al Heller

Google’s advertising network reaches more people in Chicago than the Chicago Tribune and twice the people in Houston as the Houston Chronicle, according to Brett Goffin, Google’s head of retail industry development. “We at Google don’t know what the love of the circular is. It’s not either-or. It’s about extending reach.”

Goffin, the online giant’s first full-timer dedicated to trade promotion, told attendees at a recent trade promotion conference that CPGs should extend the reach of their trade events through online media “because they drive offline sales.” He added that the “insight and vision” they gain would prepare them for a time soon when over 40% of all sales will be impacted by online media.

“What excites us is that people spend the same amount of time online (14 hours per week, according to Jupiter Research}, yet only 6% of U.S.ad dollars are spent online. The gap between ad spend and media consumption is a vast opportunity,” he noted. Indeed, online ad spend could grow from $177 per household in 2005 to $362 in 2010, projected Universal-McCann data.

Search commands 42% of today’s Internet advertising dollars, and “studies the past five years show that search has the lowest cost per acquisition of new customers than any other mechanism. It grows sales. That’s what trade promotion is about. Yet manufacturers and retailers haven’t gotten the tip of the iceberg around working together to do that,” he observed, speaking at the annual conference of the Trade Promotion Management Associates.

Consumption and buying behavior have changed most radically, said Goffin in his presentation on using online media for trade promotion. “With information at consumers’ fingertips, they are truly in control. No longer does the advertiser have to decide who the core customer is. Target customers now come to Google….You’d be hard-pressed to find a more qualified customer than one who tells you what they’re interested in. It’s similar to displays in stores. This is a virtual aisle seven where you just pay per click.” An added plus: CPG advertisers also see how many people clicked on an ad and how many sales came from that click.

“This comes back to the claiming process,” he went on to say. “Today it’s not about, Can you prove (performance) to me.’ The data is there, and you know the value of the click,” said Goffin, of how online analytics foster accountability. “Manufacturers and retailers collaborate around where and how they ran, and create creative controls to ensure that everyone is following the agreed-upon rules.”

Also positive for CPG advertisers: keywords they can own, and the ability to create standard ad templates for all of their partners to use.

In a Q&A session that followed, Goffin shared that for the near future, Google may figure out “a simple way to geo-target a specific Jewel initiative (say 30 cents off a Red Bull) and see how to drive traffic to the stores.” Long range, Google is “working with a CPG company to promote on the basis of psychographics, demographics, page content, and relevant context rather than what’s in an actual search. I don’t believe there’s a sophisticated manufacturer who’s fully captured that yet. But it’s a great idea for the future.”