Friday, May 18, 2007
Gates Sees Rapid, Messy Shift To Online Ad Model
byIn a recent talk with some of Microsoft’s biggest customers, Bill Gates predicted the advertising model for traditional media would unravel in the face of more targeted and accountable Web-based advertising. He predicted that newspapers, traditional television, yellow pages and other media would rapidly migrate online to protect advertising bases that are increasingly placing their marketing dollars elsewhere. Even if these traditional media do transition to online formats, Gates predicts a tumultuous changeover ahead. It is similar to what Bob Garfield, a columnist with Advertising Age has been saying in his “Chaos" articles.
Of course, one of Microsoft’s biggest rivals, Google, is perhaps poised to contribute and benefit from this media migration more than anyone. As Robert Young points out in his blog, Google is essentially building an advertising operating system, not only for online media, but also for traditional media sold through online methods.
As has been pointed out before, this doesn’t mean TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and other traditional media are going away. It just means the advertising business model that has built mainstream media is going to get dicey. That could mean bargains for astute advertisers who know the worth of what they are buying.
