You gotta love how easy it is to make headlines.  Put the words “Google” and “acquisition” in the same headline and wah-bam!  This time, the initial reaction to Google potentially acquiring Invite Media has many ad networks, publishers, and even agencies very nervous.  At this point, won’t Google simply own all search and more than 50% of the display, including the ad serving portion? The answers are, yes, no, and it won’t matter in the end.

Sure, if this acquisition actually happened then Google would have the potential to own the transactions within a disproportionate amount of the display market (through acquisition) in addition to already owning (through its own entrepreneurial development) the majority of search.  The former is only potential, not reality, though.  The “no” part of the answer comes from publisher reactions within Invite or the to-be-acquired DSP.  You think Yahoo is going to keep Right Media as part of a DSP that is owned by Google?  You think MSN will continue with its integration of AdECN into that DSP if Google has the potential to monetize and dominate its inventory?  Additionally, if you look through most DSPs site lists, Google’s own content network already makes up a huge portion of the inventory available within the interface.  Surely Google can’t be buying a company for its interface for accessing its own inventory… for which it already has an interface!

In the end, though, none of this will matter.  You see, sometimes I really enjoy the ‘I told you so’ dance (which I believe was made popular by Grace Adler of Will & Grace fame).  In September, 2008, I proposed that Google’s massive acquisition spree would end in anti-trust litigation.  With the AdMob deal clearing the pole vault bar by a t-shirt’s thickness, it doesn’t seem that any other major acquisitions that spread Google’s tentacles further into the industry for domination’s sake will pass muster.  Or, if they do, it’ll simply lead to a Google break-up.  Just as IBM pounded its chest in the 80s and Microsoft did in the 90s, Google has done so throughout the 2000s.  But it has yet to happen in history that a tech giant has dominated for more than a decade.  It’s my prediction, again, that this won’t change now.

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Lots and lots of years ago someone realized it wasn’t just a good idea to trade one guy’s wares for another’s.  Money was invented to make these transactions easier by trading a commonly agreed upon currency.  Great idea.  Fast forward to May, 2010, in Miami, FL.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Compete, Inc’s CMO Summit in Miami. The CEO of one of the major WPP companies suggested that the need to find a common currency for measuring online and its delivery is one of the biggest things holding us back.  Someone also mentioned this while asking a question from the audience.  While developing currency thousands of years ago was a good idea, we still see the value in having various currencies around the world rather than a one-world bank and currency. There is a reason for that, and to suggest we should adopt a single “currency” online, not to mention the fact that it’s the biggest thing holding us back, has got to be one of the scariest and regressive proposed behaviors I’ve ever heard come across in our industry.  There are two major reasons for this.

First, there is a need for currency in general but simplifying everything to one currency suggests that marketers aren’t capable of thinking for themselves.  You see, the people suggesting this point lovingly to the GRP/TRP.  I can’t think of a worse currency in media measurement today.  Sure, it’s universally accepted, but it’s accepting the notion of measuring very little because it’s hard and too costly to do any better.  400 people in a DMA of four million have “people meters” and provide a statistically invalid sample from which hundreds of millions of dollars are spent.  THIS is what we want online?  But let’s just say we look to Nielsen for a system.  They have one!  If you want to target Men 25-54 with HHI of $75k+, then pull a Nielsen report that gives you these sites, and then work with Nielsen to tag your creative and they’ll show you a report of (a much more statistically valid sample, mind you) how you delivered against that audience.  Plan, deliver, report, all by the same people who measure your TRPs.  How much easier does it get?  But wait, there’s more!  You can get this report from comScore, Compete, or even free for Quantcast. Why would we want a monopoly on this system the way the TV GRP measurement system works?  It’s certainly not better for it!

But the above assumes that all you want to measure is audience.  This doesn’t even put a scratch in the surface of the real reasons to use online media.  Right audience or not, DR advertisers have been using online effectively to deliver real ROI for years.  At this point, who cares about GRPs or audience – they’ve got money in the bank! And, how many businesses are identical in that they can use the exact same ROI calculation or eCPA metric?  None.  That is the beauty of online.  You can measure what is exclusively relevant to your business, down to the penny, user, and action.  Sounds just awful.

Remember back in 3^rd grade math class how everyone in the room understood something except “that one kid”? The teacher then had to take time to bring that one child up to speed while the rest couldn’t move along in learning anything new.  This is what we’ll get if we try to get everyone on one common currency: the lowest common denominator.  The metric that is so easy to understand it, even the least advanced CMO can understand it.  Is this really what we want?  If not, correct people when they suggest the need for this common currency.  We don’t need anything made simpler, but rather we need people to identify their business goals they can accomplish with online marketing and develop a plan to meet those goals.

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So Apple announced its new gouging pricing for its iAd platform.  $10 CPM plus $2 per click, which could $30 CPM if the ad clicks even moderately well.  But the biggest news here isn’t the pricing for 1,000 impressions, but that it’s a one million dollar minimum commitment.  That’s a big chunk of change for most advertisers, and those CMOs who decide to make the leap will definitely be defining a point in their recent careers.  But, will it make these CMOs a star and launch them to greater fame and fortune, or will it be a career killer?  Let’s take a look.

Hyundai was mentioned as an early adopter.  They are certainly on a roll and are positioned to be a top-few automaker in the world by the end of the decade.  But are Apple device owners the right target to spend $1MM?  On one hand, I haven’t seen any research that shows these consumers are any more likely to purchase a new car, or more specifically an import or Hyundai, than any other device user.  For all we know, Blackberry Pearl users could be the perfect target.  On the flip side, Apple device owners surely aren’t any less likely than the average TV watcher, and car companies spend billions on (basically) untargeted TV advertising each year anyway.

So is this a bad use of money, or just questionable?  Other than the pricing being misguided, the CMO who decides to spend this $1MM+ will have to decide if there are future employers they’re hoping to work for.  With CMO tenure averaging only 18 months, they’ll likely soon be working somewhere else and if that company is a PR-driven company, this could be a great move for them.  I believe most of the value in this $1MM will be in the PR generated from it.  However, if it’s a very metrics-oriented company a CMO will be interviewing with next, the iAd pricing is too expensive to justify the near-term ROI.  It’s unfortunately $1MM of some company’s money will likely be spent to further one or a few people’s career, but at this point that’s what the iAd’s early adopters seems to be appealing to.

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