Google Radio Redux

The Wall Street Journal's Jessica E. Vascellaro does an excellent job of recapping the rise and fall of Google's moribund radio advertising initiative.

In a nutshell,

Google Inc.'s foray into selling radio ads was supposed to show how its online-advertising brainpower could revolutionize an old-fashioned people business.

The company teamed up with Chad and Ryan Steelberg, brothers who were sharp dressers and wore deep Southern California tans. They had a technology for transmitting, scheduling and tracking radio ads. "Google is going to conquer radio," boasted the exuberant Chad in 2006.

Instead, radio tripped up Google. The company is pulling the plug on its attempt to automate radio-ad sales on May 31, exposing how far Google is from its goal of grabbing a big chunk of the multibillion-dollar business of off-line ad sales.

A look at what went wrong shows that Google misjudged the capacity of its technology to work beyond the Web, and underestimated the human side of the business [emphasis mine]. Radio stations refused to turn over airtime to a computer algorithm that set prices far lower than their own rates. Big advertisers steered clear.

Good story. Good reminder that some things, like human relationships and interactions, are not reducible to automation.

Read the FULL STORY HERE (for as long as WSJ keeps it available to the public):

What Google Didn't Understand About Radio Advertising

Don't misunderstand. I like Google. I use it every day to search the Internet. Google provides the infrastructure for this blog. Google is a genuine American success story.

But Google was a fish out of water when it entered the broadcast radio business. Google spent millions to learn a lesson that almost any mom-and-pop radio station operator could have taught them over a cup of coffee: some things you just can't automate.

Radio advertising is about relationships, not widgets.

Successful radio ad campaigns are built over a period of time on a foundation of communication, collaboration and creativity, processes not reducible to automation.

I suspect most of the individuals or companies whose first experience in radio advertising was to gamble on Google were disappointed with the results.

The advertiser who insists on buying an advertising schedule on the basis primarily of rate or ratings sets himself up for disappointment. Almost invariably he'll conclude that "radio doesn't work."

Well, not that way, anyway.

--------------

Addendum Friday the 13th

Wall Street Journal observes: "Google devalues everything it touches" -