Google has made it known to the market for a very long time that they’re in the business of organizing the world’s digital information for people to access via their online properties. What they don’t trumpet as loudly is that they’re also in the business of becoming “the” one-stop shop advertisers can go to for text ads, radio ads, news ads and now with the acquisition of DoubleClck: display ads.
Even though DoubleClick stopped being an ad network and focused on becoming a technology solution for publishers interested in running their own advertising platform through its technology partnerships, the DoubleClick acquisition provides Google with direct access to deep-pocket advertisers that spend their ad dollars mainly on brand or display advertising. In 2006, display advertising represented about half of the overall online ad spending. If this is an area where Google still needs to make improvements, the DoubleClick acquisition makes perfect sense. Why try to grow the business when they have the financial muscle to buy it.
In the chess game of corporate strategy, Google’s move can be categorized in many different ways. On the offensive side, they’re positioning themselves to grow their display side of the business which just so happens to be the bread and butter of Yahoo and MSN. On the defensive side, the acquisition keeps DoubleClick off the hands of their archrivals. Regardless of how the acquisition is viewed, only time will tell if it’s going to yield a positive effect on Google’s bottom line.
If you are interested, a great resource for tracking this issue is John Battelle’s Searchblog, go here to monitor the conversation.
