Do no evil, Google?

It's not every day a client sends a FW: my way which causes me to literally laugh out loud (and clog other's inbox as well), but today's the day.  Apparently, our constant ranting about technology rarely being the solution to a Marketer's problem is seeping into to those who listen to us most often (and who's the worst offender of the "world domination through technology).  Take a look at what had me rolling, the official See-no-evil-hear-no-evil-and-certainly-do-no-evil Monkeys:

For the record, our exact quote is what Sergey and Larry have done best is create a technological solution so easy, any monkey could use it.  That does not, however, explain why people play their game.  Why, in the wake of ever present traffic cost inflation, do business owners look to continually blame Google for their own marketing ineptness (ineptness is likely to harsh, poor strategy and poorer execution is more likely) ?

Despite the recent brewhaha over Google and Relevance the key to seemless contextual advertising is just that: relevance- providing consistent scent of information, from the search term to the adword (driving point), and the adword to the landing page (funnel point).  It's about understanding that search terms are laden with intent, and intent is an action based on a motivation.  Recall the third question we continually ask and answer during Persuasion Architecture engagements- what information would our audience need to feel comfortable and confident taking the action you've laid out for them- search terms hold your first clue.

We joke about Google around the office, because their notion of "doing no evil" is comical when with the advent of Gbuy they'll now potentially know every piece of personally identifiable information about you, save two (Driver's license and passport).  But truth be told, Eric Schmidt's quote about charging advertisers more for PPC ads is not evil, it's capitalism.  It's not Google's fault many Marketer's take the lazy way out.  It's not their fault Conversion Rates industry wide continue to fall. 

It is their fault however that people are misled into believing technology holds the cure to that which hasn't been planned properly in the first place (and proper planning of a contextual visitor experiece my friends, is a Persuasion challenge not a technological one).  It's also one of the reasons we asked Yahoo, and specifically brand marketing legend Murray Gaylord to partner with us and write the forward for Waiting for Your Cat to Bark.

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Comments

[Webmetricsguru]

I love the photo of the Three Monkeys! The Monkeys don't look Evil either.

[Pedant With an Attitude]

It's "ineptitude".

[Howard Kaplan]

Thanks for the note, but it would appear either usage is ok in this instance. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ineptitude

[Mr. Shiney]

Google certainly seems good at marketing speak. That's all "Do no evil" is, IMHO. Maybe it once meant something. But beginning with their nefarious "Google ID"/persistant cookie they were pretty much in the evil business whether they wanted to be or not. I think Google's present strategy of rolling out new products piecemeal will continue to be very effective in attracting users who throw caution to the wind or either are just to dumb to know better. To bad more people haven't read "How To Boil a Frog."

Google certainly seems good at marketing speak. That's all "Do no evil" is, IMHO. Maybe it once meant something. But beginning with their nefarious "Google ID"/persistant cookie they were pretty much in the evil business whether they wanted to be or not. I think Google's present strategy of rolling out new products peicemeal will continue to be very effective in attracting users who throw caution to the wind or either are just to dumb to know better. To bad more people haven't read "How To Boil a Frog."

http://mrshiney.froppy.com/blog/

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