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Google MD writes hilarious job application to join Saturday Night Live…

18 Tuesday Aug 2020

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Digital, Digital marketing, SEM & SEO, Social Media

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

advertising, branding, digital, digital marketing, Google, SEM, SEO

Well folks, job applications take many forms, but this week the MD of Google in Australia obviously played her cards to pursue a career as a comedian.

How else can you explain this hilarious Open letter to Australians? It was written in response to the Australian Government deciding that Google must pay for news written by other publishers and journalists, rather than steal the news from them. Go figure – don’t be evil!

You must be aware of how this works dear reader. If you take something from someone or an organisation without their permission, then make money from what you’ve taken, you must pay that person or organisation for what you stole. It’s common sense, common courtesy and common law.

Sadly, Google appears to be just a common thief

The headline of this article was going to be: Common thief launches comedy channel, also known as Google…” but I changed my mind.

Even the most inexperienced marketing clerk knows that Google steals IP and content from legitimate publishers/journalists without paying for it, and offers it up within search results to make money from the associated advertising. It also manipulates search results for its economic benefit, so you cannot necessarily rely on organic results.

Bob Hoffman – The Ad Contrarian – has been calling out these and other unsavoury organisations/practices for years. Think Facecrook for example.

Yesterday, in what has been described as one of the funniest articles of all time, Google’s MD tried to threaten Australians with outlandish claims about loss of free search services. Google has been roundly condemned by marketers, consumers, media organisations, school children and most importantly, the ACCC (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission). The story is on all TV news bulletins and online news channels.

In addition to the letter, Google is displaying this image on its homepage on Chrome – it’s not appearing on other search engines.

The ACCC’s response to Google is here.

The reason the Google letter makes you laugh out loud is the naivety of the author to assume anybody would believe the outrageous claims it makes. Who is advising this alleged leader?

The whole situation raises a number of issues.

The first is the quality of the staff that work at Google. Why do they work in such an unethical business? Where is their moral compass? Why aren’t they calling out the organisation and suggesting it change its way? It’s not like Google is struggling – it made $4Billion in the Australian market alone in 2019.

The second is the misguided delusion many executives live under because they work for a major brand. This is particularly true in marketing roles. They believe that because they work for an established global brand, they somehow have more talent, or are better than others.

Most marketing clerks are just process functionaries – pushing paper and pixels for profit. They’re not innovative, creative or inspiring. They don’t invent new products or services or distribution channels. They just spend the advertising budget – and that’s an important function.

You consistently see the evidence at seminars, where executives with flash job titles are invited to speak. The audience anticipates something brilliant because of the job title and brand. Then reality hits – they have no secret sauce, they don’t know much more than the audience and most are rather average presenters.

But the real kicker is how even the highest paid executives know the power a letter has over all other media. Whenever there is a crisis or a desperate bid for credibility, you’ll find executives, politicians, church leaders et al, writing “an open letter” and publishing it in newspapers or online – just as the MD of Google did.

If you ever wanted evidence of the credibility and power of direct mail, look no further. But that’s another article…

Yours sincerely,

Malcolm Auld
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marketingmal/

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Should all alleged Content Marketers be sacked on sight?

13 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, BIG DATA, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Media, Sales, SEM & SEO, Social Media, Thought Leadership

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

branding, content curation, content marketing, content marketing institute, conversations, copywriting, digital marketing, direct marketing, Gartner, public relations, story telling, Thought Leadership

Your headline is one of the most important parts of your content. It attracts the reader to continue to read/watch/listen.

Of course I don’t believe all content marketers should really be sacked – it’s merely a figure of speech – but hopefully, given the current trend in animosity towards content marketing, the headline will attract readers:)

Like many, I’m concerned about marketers being duped by the latest new-new thing in marketing – another label for something that’s decades old. This time it’s content marketing and if you follow Gartner’s Hype Cycles, it seems content marketing is on its way out as we read – making room for the next bright shiny digital object. Mind you Gartner predicted there’d be no mail by 2000.

Gartner Hype Cycle

Content Marketing heading into the abyss…in the trough of disillusionment

Creating content is not new to marketing. In fact, creating content has been in our culture since mankind stood upright. Think cave paintings to record content and communicate to others.

Check out this image from a 17th century book:

1742

The headline reads “Contents“. OMG dear reader – physical evidence of content creation in publications.

As you well know, the majority of books (including ebooks), magazines documents et al, begin by listing the content you will find in the publication. Who’d have thought hey?

So why do alleged marketers claim the creation of content is new? Whose interest are they really serving?

I can only go from my humble experience, as like most marketers I’ve been creating and curating (to us a digi-term) content since nappies. More than 30 years ago when a Marketing Manager of TNT I wrote a weekly editorial article in the Daily Mirror – an afternoon newspaper in NSW. The column was called Property Protection and gave tips on home security to readers. Accompanying the column was an ad from TNT Alarm Systems – one of the brands I managed.

So the reader saw the content in two parts – the paid content in the ad and the editorial content. The editorial wasn’t earned content – I wrote it free of charge as an “industry expert”.

Let’s move forward to 2015 and rewrite what I just wrote, but using “digital content marketing language“.

I published content in the Daily Mirror, alongside the paid media. Interestingly it wasn’t earned media because I published it free of charge. It wasn’t owned media, as Rupert owned the paper. And it wasn’t paid media because that was the ad below it.

It was thought leadership delivered as native advertising, as part of my content marketing strategy. WOW, WOW & WOW!!!

Not only was it all that – but the UX (user experience for the digitally challenged) was omni-channel wonderfulness, as the reader was able to turn the page using their finger and read both the paid ad and the native advertising in an integrated format, without having to leave the platform. Unf***gbelievable. The content was consistently presented on the user interface – that’s the page, in case you’re wondering.

You get the picture.

Yet despite all the evidence, a whole content marketing industry is booming.

There’s even a private company called The Content Marketing Institute. It’s nothing of the sort – an institute that is – but don’t you wish you’d invented that money-making-machine? Call yourself an institute and you gain faux credibility and get the gullible to part with money. Hats off to the founders for getting away with it – brilliantly I might add.

Interestingly, my mate Drayton Bird recently wrote that the founder of said “institute” believes content marketing is a fad and will only last another couple years. But hey, they’ve made their money.

So here’s today’s first lesson – if you think creating content for marketing purposes is new, you need to go back to marketing college or leave the industry – you obviously know little about marketing.

Lesson number two – if you think consumers have miraculously changed their DNA and don’t consume paid ads, you are deluded and need to go back to marketing college or leave the industry – see above.

Lesson three – if you think the future is about brands telling stories without any proposition to entice you to buy (short or long term) see lesson one.

Here are some insights from an earlier post:

Amazing Insight 1: Customers don’t really care about brands

Amazing Insight 2: Customers don’t want relationships with brands

Amazing Insight 3: Customers don’t want to engage with brands

Amazing Insight 4: Customers don’t want to join a conversation with a brand

Amazing Insight 5: Customers get pissed off if you irritate them with irrelevant content marketing about your brand

But maybe I’m preaching to an empty church?

empty church

I should jump on the content marketing bandwagon and open a content creation and curation company.

But I cannot call it a content marketing agency, as there is no such thing – it’s a commercial impossibility.

It’s against the law of natural commerce to call yourself a content marketing agency. An agency is named because it earns commission from publishers for placing paid media as their agent. This is why they are called advertising agencies.

Given the entire purpose of the content marketers is to create content that isn’t for paid media – only for earned and owned media – then by its very nature, a content marketing agency cannot exist.

There are no paid media commissions involved. So there aren’t any agents – which means there are no agencies. Simple really.

So any alleged content marketing expert calling their business a “content marketing agency” should therefore be sacked on sight for fraudulent misrepresentation – oops…

 

P.S. I’m running a content marketing seminar in Brisbane in two weeks. If you’re interested you’ll need to register today by clicking here.

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Google does it (again), maybe you should too…

18 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, BIG DATA, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Direct Marketing, Marketing, PPC, SEM & SEO, Social Media

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

branding, digital marketing, direct marketing, Google, marketing, PPC, press advertising

I run a seminar called “Google does it why don’t you…“. In it, I reveal how Google is one of the world’s largest users of direct mail to acquire new customers. Read more here.

Hilariously (or more likely sadly) it sometimes upsets delegates when I reveal the truth. They get p****d off that Google uses proven media channels to promote its business, not just digital channels. They thought the seminar was going to unmask some amazo digi-secrets they can steal.

Well the seminar does share secrets. It reveals that to succeed with marketing in the digital world, you must not just focus narrowly on the digital channels. You risk losing your business if you rely solely on digital. Like Google, you should use a range of different media to grow your business – here’s an example:

Google Red 9300

Google – one of the world’s largest users of direct mail to grow business

To the detriment of the marketing industry, too many marketers have become digi-lemmings (following fashion rather than function) in the pursuit of what’s good for their career, rather than their brands. John Hancock’s brilliant essay – The marketer stripped bare and our nude future – explains it well.

So Google’s latest campaign in Australia should come as no surprise. Here’s one of the full page colour press ads (that’s FPC to use marketing jargon) now running in local suburban newspapers. That’s right folks – Google is running local newspaper advertisements – not a digital platform in sight.

press ad

Google’s FPC local press ads

The campaign is also on bus-sides and posters. And not that long ago Google also ran newspaper ads promoting Adwords. And in an amazing use of commonsense, the ads use sales language to convince prospects to buy. None of this comfy content, written in the vain hope you will read the warm fuzzies and be inspired to open your wallet as a result. Google asks for orders.

google-print-ad

So if Google is using the proven media channels and techniques as well as digital channels, why have most marketers chosen to dump what works, in favour for what in many cases, is yet to prove its worth?

The digital emperor’s new clothes are starting to be seen for what they are.

So if you are using a digi-spruiker who is foolishly directing you to only promote your business in digital channels, please save them from their folly. Fire them and send them on a 101 Marketing Course. They’ll thank you for it eventually.

After all, what’s “Good for the Google” has to be “Good for the Gullible”….

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Two marketers walk into a bar to tell SEO jokes…

06 Friday Jun 2014

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Digital, Marketing Automation, SEM & SEO

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Tags

digital marketing, SEM, SEO

avagoodweegend, have a good weekend, hava good weekend, havagood weegend…

f82d736a7273a0024295e910e7b3cb03

Stuffing-Keywords-4

what-does-seo-mean

seo-newbie

SEO-birthday-card-for-funny-seo-jokes-images-and-quotes-article

frabz-SEO-COPYWRITER-What-my-friends-think-I-do-What-my-other-friends--6a3f33

f6b2274c2db04957b52b974d6eb2f1a1

xmin5

cringe-worthy-seo-phrases

d052c04942e198b3b40ede99235e5482

b4cc8826e1b828003b45cf142f797ad2

best-google-jokes-02_zps2089fe38

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PPC advertising is much older than you think…

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Digital, SEM & SEO

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

digital marketing, PPC, SEM, SEO

Ask any young digi-marketer – particularly those who have only been in the workforce post the great dot con – ‘how old is PPC advertising‘ and they’ll inevitably say about 10 years. Some may guess at 15 years, or say ‘as old as Google‘.

The fact is, PPC advertising is at least 80 years of age, possibly older.birthday cake

PPC advertising was started by direct marketers before WWII. It was called Pay Per Coupon advertising where the advertiser paid the media owner a commission based on the number of coupons received from ads that ran in that publisher’s print publications.

Then came an amazing new service that transmitted voice over data lines (known commonly as the telephone) and Pay Per Call emerged where media owners were paid commissions on the number of calls received from an advertisement. This grew with the penetration of televisions and phones in homes.

Now in the new century we have Pay Per Click, the latest evolution of PPC, where the media owner is paid when people click on ads on websites. The major difference is the faster speed of measurement and the depth of associated data.

Even the landing page tests of Pay Per Click ads are just versions of the original split-run tests conducted in traditional print and mail media.

Many young marketers don’t study history. They assume that because something is new to them, it is new to the world. It’s an easy trap to fall into – our tertiary marketing education is quite out of touch. The first thing we do when we employ university graduates is give them remedial education to bring them up to date and make them useful.

Young marketers are making expensive mistakes as they learn new technology. Yet if they took time to understand the ways of marketing and what has always worked in all media, their results would improve and their careers progress faster.

That’s assuming of course they are interested in results and careers?!

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PPC advertising is much older than you think…

04 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Digital, SEM & SEO

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

digital marketing, PPC, SEM, SEO

Ask any young digi-marketer – particularly those who have only been in the workforce post the great dot con – ‘how old is PPC advertising’ and they’ll inevitably say about 10 years. Some may guess at 15 years, or say ‘as old as Google’.

The fact is, PPC advertising is at least 80 years of age, possibly older.

birthday cake

PPC advertising was started by direct marketers before WWII. It was called Pay Per Coupon advertising where the advertiser paid the media owner a commission based on the number of coupons received from ads that ran in that publisher’s print publications.

Then came an amazing new service that transmitted voice over data lines (known commonly as the telephone) and Pay Per Call emerged where media owners were paid commissions on the number of calls received from an advertisement. This grew with the penetration of televisions and phones in homes.

Now in the new century we have Pay Per Click, the latest evolution of PPC, where the media owner is paid when people click on ads on websites. The major difference is the faster speed of measurement and the depth of associated data.

Even the landing page tests of Pay Per Click ads are just versions of the original split-run tests conducted in traditional print and mail media.

Many young marketers don’t study history. They assume that because something is new to them, it is new to the world. It’s an easy trap to fall into – our tertiary marketing education is quite out of touch. The first thing we do when we employ university graduates is give them remedial education to bring them up to date and make them useful.

Young marketers are making expensive mistakes as they learn new technology. Yet if they took time to understand the ways of marketing and what has always worked in all media, their results would improve and their careers progress faster.

That’s assuming of course they are interested in results and careers?!

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Recent Posts

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