Anatomy of a Web-Advertising Campaign

By Jerry Bader

In The Beginning There Was Marketing

Anyone in business who has any interest in using the Web to further his or her business is well aware of “search engine optimization.” Not a day goes by that my email in-box isn’t loaded with information on how to get the best search engine results, and not a week goes by that a client or potential client doesn’t request that their website be not just search friendly but search engine fanatical.

For some time we have been preaching the importance of delivering the marketing message and that your message should not be corrupted or distorted by techniques aimed at attracting search engine robots while driving away real people who may actually be potential customers.

Now I realize that in many circles this attitude is considered outright heresy, but hopefully there are a few marketing types around that understand websites have to deliver more than miscellaneous random eyeballs; websites have to deliver a message that is memorable, understandable, useable, and if you’re really good at your job, information that can be incorporated into your audiences’ belief system.

With that in mind we were pleasantly surprised when Google the primary target of this SEO obsessive compulsive frenzy of technical slight-of-hand announced that they were instituting Google Video Ads and to add a little icing on the cake, they purchased YouTube adding to their already considerable ínvestment in Google Video. Somebody at the big “G” thinks video is a viable Web-medium even if the purveyors of search engine fool’s gold would have you believe otherwise.

The list of companies, including Forbes, Amazon, Wyeth, and Ford, delivering Web-audio and Web-video grows daily and we are not just talking about major corporations. Small companies are using multimedia to get the edge on their largër competitors who still have their heads buried in the search engine optimization sand.

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