That number may come as a surprise until you hear from those who are critical in driving the product’s success — advertisers. In a recent survey conducted by GMS Local of marketing managers of national brands with brick-and-mortar locations, marketers expressed little interest in online deal offers like the real-time deal concept that Groupon’s newest Now product represents.

While Groupon has placed significant bets on the product, only 4% of marketers polled in the study indicated a preference for this approach over other options, including the more common email-based daily deal. Groupon expects big things from Groupon Now, as evidenced by a March BusinessWeek article, stating that CEO Andrew Mason hoped for an incremental $1 billion in revenue from new products in 2011 — namely Groupon Now. The Now approach is designed to connect merchants (such as restaurants) that have extra supply with local consumers.

It is said to have the potential not only to transform lunchtime habits, but also to alter the topography of the multibillion-dollar market for local commerce. “However, according to our research findings that reflect the actual performance of the Now service, there is a striking disconnect between Groupon’s initial projections and reality.

Launching with much fanfare, Groupon Now has seen a gradual decline in growth since this past summer, and represents only 1% of the company’s revenue. These results are much more closely aligned with data reported by marketers that participated in the GMS Local study, but why does such a disparity exist?  

Why are brands not rushing to adopt Groupon Now? The reasons for this may be twofold:

1.) brands tend to make less money on Groupon Now versus traditional daily deals

2.) brands ideal for using the Now product often lack an inventory-tracking technology to truly make their Now play a “real-time” play. Much of Now’s allure is with the restaurant vertical, where empty tables on a Monday afternoon can be shopped similarly to empty hotel rooms on Hotwire. In order to achieve the success hoped for with the launch of Now and other real-time deal offerings, technological innovations from the deal provider or a third-party inventory manager, and corresponding deal specificity are needed. Should national brands consider the Groupon Now offering given its current limitations and lack of adoption? In short, yes, because Now has a key advantage over the traditional email daily deals model. For brands, it offers more targeted and authentic consumer engagement. For consumers, it allows them to drive the interaction and engage in ways that are more relevant and meaningful. But brands must do so with the following two caveats:

Localize, localize and localize your Now deals. Storefronts must be autonomous with their approach to and engagement with Groupon Now. Providing individual stores with control on how they deploy real-time deals will ensure greater relevance to the needs of the local consumer.

Encourage diversity in various markets to see what resonates with local consumers as there isn’t a one-size-fits-all way to success. A diversified approach will help you identify what works and what doesn’t, and allow you the opportunity to tweak your approach to make it work.
Our research and Groupon Now’s performance indicates that the real-time deal space remains in the early stages of adoption with both brands and consumers. Given its ability to ultimately deliver deals that are more relevant to the consumer, the real-time model will gain greater traction in the near term, particularly when technological advances enable more retailers to enter the space. 

In the interim, for brands that want to be ahead of the learning curve, it would benefit them to actively experiment with Groupon Now and like offerings as the market continues to evolve.

This article was writted by GMS Local and published in MediaPost’s Online Media Daily on Thursday, November 17, 2011. Follow GMS Local on Twitter – @GMSLocal

I am personally excited because I have my sights set on not just being #1 for me, Chris Copeland, in the engines, but am now turning my focus toward the self-gratification that comes with having the most Twitter followers that hang on my every self-serving and validating 140 burst of brilliance from my @SearchBoss handle.

Actually, the paragraphs above have almost not a word of truth in them, but they do make a point – one that seems to have been lost in the gold rush surrounding the latest digital trend. You see, if you asked me to describe my personal philosophy, it would be more “Act like you have been there” than “I’m a Golden God.” But, apparently somewhere in the last few years, that philosophy came to mean that I wasn’t old-school, just old — at least in our industry.

My job is not about building the brand of Me first. If the adage is true that you can’t take it with you, I have to believe that goes beyond the material possessions to the immaterial of the social sphere. I only need a retweet from St. Peter at the pearly gates when the time comes — not from 1,000 of spambots before I leave this world.

I’m not a rocket scientist or doing brain surgery every day, but what we do in advertising does have a purpose and a meaning. If you care about this business, then you approach your job with a hearty desire to impact the masses – not with your self-fulfilling messages, but rather by connecting consumers with brands and being relevant. It’s not Don Draper sexy 99.44% of the time, but it has its moments.

People in the business of search and social have confused promotion of ideas and material performance with promotion of self. They are measuring their impact by follower counts and printed and spoken self-references. Let’s be clear that this problem is not an epidemic, but more prevalent than ever before.

Some people have “the goods,” and earn respect by the way they handle their business and their unflinching willingness to do the right thing to ensure success. And then there are so-called experts who now advise others on how to construct programs to maximize follower counts and enhance rankings through the superficial and timely with a kind of excess that would make a Kardashian weep with jealousy.

Years ago, I used to joke that people would attend a search conference for four days and suddenly become qualified to hang out a shingle and go into business as a consultant. The acceleration of technology has been such, that in the social media space you can seemingly skip the conference, hit a couple of websites, gorge your Twitter account with meaningless followers chasing keyword-laden tweets, and bypass doing any work.

If Chris Copeland ends up #1 on Google or Bing as a result of an article that celebrates Chris Copeland, written by Chris Copeland, then so be it. That’s the way the game is played today, and I can handle that. But, while others are worried about being experts in self, the Zen of Me, the tao of I, I’m worried about next. And next isn’t about me; it’s about a platform in a garage or dorm room — and it’s certainly not being developed by someone tweeting how friggin’ cool it’s going to be when finished.

Look at the great digital successes of the past decade, and you see companies that have reached the top by doing the work first — not by talking about it. Someday Chris Copeland will walk away from advertising – and, like a majority of the folks in this industry, there will be no highlight reel on the work I did for me. The people, the work, the recognition from others will speak for me far better than anything I can say about me, Chris Copeland.

This article was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and published in MediaPost’s Search Insider, Wednesday, March 9, 2011. Follow Chris on Twitter – @SearchBoss

Earlier this week, Microsoft and Facebook held a press event to announce a new module coming to Bing. In essence, Bing is now a true social search engine, using your own Facebook social graph to inform and expand your decision-making process. Looking for a new restaurant or a good movie? The new Bing experience will enable you to see your friends’ experiences as part of the searching process.

This, in and of itself, is big news. Search has been an evolving marketplace, but the searchable content has historically been similar from engine to engine. Whether it is Google, Yahoo or now, Bing, the major Web sites — sites like Wikipedia — have always been prominent on every engine. Image and video inclusion as well as that of news feeds may vary by query, but the general data sources have always been whatever could be crawled and indexed. That is certainly not the case, at least for now, with this deal.

But for most marketers, the implications of this have meaning far beyond search. The strength of search has been in its direct-response nature — the ability to search, find, refine and ultimately act in some way. That way has historically been emphasized as purchase, but more and more brands are considering the intent expression as an important part of understanding who people are and what motivates them either into searching or where they go next on their consumer journey.

Contrast that with social media where, what was once a solitary island for friends to connect with friends has been infiltrated by brands wanting some of the benefits of friendship. Twitter and Facebook are leading a charge to convince marketers that the connections made through their social platforms is a crucial piece of the value exchange between consumers and brands.

What started as artists using MySpace to connect with their audience evolved into Twitter as a new-age customer-service vehicle. It became fashionable for brands to have Facebook fan pages and to tweet deals and information out to customers to help them stay informed. Beyond that, location-based services such as Foursquare have gotten into the act and given another layer of connectivity and currency between consumers and brands. Each of these engagements has a consistent value exchange that brands were giving in exchange for very little. Whether a band was trying to hit it big or Comcast was trying to resolve a disgruntled customer, it was the brand doing the heavy lifting. People use Foursquare to check in so their friends know where they are, but they also hope that businesses are willing to exchange that check-in for some discount or freebie.

The announcement of social as defined by Facebook into Bing both changes and amplifies this relationship. If someone is looking for a good restaurant in New York to eat, a query on Bing not only provides what they find to be relevant but also what your friend network has decided worthy of liking. Suddenly all the Yelp reviews in the world seem minimal in a results page if one friend you trust as your groups “foodie” likes a place. It means that every person who visits, interacts or buys from you can be a part of your sales force and marketing efforts. Or they can be that for your competition.

Brands like Zappos, JetBlue and Apple have grown in popularity because of their authenticity. At the ANA conference this week, I saw a tweet from Patrick Harris of Microsoft suggesting that the early themes for advertisers  having success in this climate were “purpose, authenticity, heritage, service through people.” Safe to say the brands I described above adhere to that. But how do small brands with limited resources, and “old” brands, turn the battleship to meet this challenge? The answers aren’t clear, but what is becoming increasingly apparent is that as social and search fuse for consumers, the impetus for change is staring brands in the face. Those that do not provide customers with a sense of belonging, invite them on the journey together, and recognize the importance of “like” and its role going forward, are destined to be dead brands.

This article was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and published in MediaPost’s Search Insider , Friday, October 15, 2010. Follow Chris on Twitter – @SearchBoss

SearchFuel and GroupM Search are doing a blitz giveaway today on Twitter, giving four (4) people a free VIP pass to MediaPost’s OMMA Mobile, a one-day event where advertisers and industry leaders come together to talk all things mobile marketing. This pass covers your registration for the event, plus the breakfast and lunch on-site.

But you have to act quickly! OMMA Mobile is tomorrow, Thursday, October 29 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza from 8am til 5:30 or so.

For your chance for a free pass, follow these three simple steps by 3pm CST today:

1. Send a Reply or Direct Message (DM) to @SearchFuel on Twitter
2. Tell us you want to go to OMMA Mobile
   
3. Tell us your company name (Sorry, I do need this. Not for marketing purposes – but when we got these passes I had to agree they’d be used for brand advertisers only, so I need to keep my promise.)
   

We’ll draw 4 names from all of the Tweeps who DM us and I’ll DM you back by 3:30pm CST if you’ve won a pass. From there we’ll connect by email or phone to get you registered.

So why should you see and be seen at OMMA Mobile? For starters, it’s a gathering of more than 200 advertisers and mobile marketing experts which makes for a great day of networking and conversation about where the industry is going. GroupM Search is kicking off the day by hosting the breakfast session, featuring a round table discussion with Google, Microsoft, Joule, Outrider and JumpTap about current challenges and opportunities facing the mobile marketplace today. The day unfolds from there as MediaPost’s mobile columnist Steve Smith emcees the event, and a handful of industry leaders take the stage, including a keynote address by John Zehr, SVP and GM of ESPN Mobile. Other speakers and panelists include Kodak, Paramount, the AP and the Weather Channel, as well as  Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and many more panelists from across multiple areas of mobile expertise.

You can check out the full agenda here.

SO GET TO IT! Pull up your favorite Twitter client and send us a tweet to enter to win your pass to OMMA Mobile. See you in LA.

It’s become the vogue pastime to prognosticate trends and events to come in the new year. This year these crystal balls are met with inauguration balls, as the calendar not only flips to a new year, but to a new message of hope and change from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. However, for all the testimonials and affirmations that we can change, the economic future for the U.S. appears firmly entrenched in a deep recession. So, unless the events of next Tuesday create a spiritual revival of consumer confidence that coincides with an awakening of the consumer checkbook, it’s safe to say that from a business and marketing perspective this year will be one of great challenge.

In difficult times comes great opportunity — an opportunity for companies to take calculated risks in order to establish and grow market position and leadership. Risk is an inherent factor in life. The risk-adverse have given up looking at their monthly 401k, or 201k depending on your depth of losses, statements. Then again, those with low risk tolerance are likely best staying home with the lights off avoiding the news, peanut butter and low-flying birds.

So where in the search space are the opportunities for greatest calculated risk to be taken? I see a few areas for advertisers, their agencies and the media vendors alike.

New Media
Is 2009 the year of mobile? For the sake of our clients, I hope not. I say that because the value and insights our clients are gaining from mobile are in part possible because the inventory availability is so strong, with little cost pressure. Due to size constraints on devices, we will never see 10 blue links or top and side navigation advertising on mobile platforms. As such, whenever the year of mobile finally does arrive, one can reasonably expect that costs will increase as demand outpaces supply of real estate. Until that time, those into the pool are enjoying greater freedom to play and learn without cost pressures.

New Models
More and more advertisers are seeking assurances that their strategy and direction are correct. Agencies are offering performance guarantees and insurance policies to quell marketers’ insecurity. Unfortunately, in these situations, there is still a lack of incentive for real growth and success.

What I expect to see more and more in ’09 is a willingness by both marketer and agency to align risk and reward. Agencies willing to bear the burden of risk with models that incent for residual actions stand to gain the most. In businesses where inventory becomes unusable (travel especially), the ability to align compensation models with company objectives presents a unique potential. What is key for this to truly work is a proper alignment of goals neither driven by procurement or gimmick.

Change You Can Believe In
Among the most frustrating things I’ve ever heard are Microsoft’s and Yahoo’s explaining how studies show the perception of quality between the three main engines is negligible. Tactics and features are not differentiators; value and benefits are differentiators.

The value proposition between consumer and Google is well-established and is unlikely to be broken by more of the same. What someone must do — and my money is on Microsoft in commercial search to explore this, while Yahoo explores brand connections – is, take a radical departure from the common expectation for search engines today. From an advertiser standpoint, the tightening of the market and departure of competition presents a great opportunity to gain more value for the investment and test alternative vehicles. For the engines, it is imperative to establish a unique value proposition with consumers that is unique from the market leader.

So where can calculated risk pay off in 2009? The advertisers who are willing to stay engaged, test new media — be it mobile or social — and look for partners willing to explore models that align compensation with success, can advance faster than during times of prosperity.

Likewise, during these conditions I firmly believe Yahoo and Microsoft have perhaps their last great chance to distinguish and close the gap in consumer perception and thus in market share and advertising revenue. As both companies experience a greater depression in their display businesses, it will be interesting to see if they will explore a change in model from straight auctioned cost-per-click to alternative forms.

Over 100 years ago, there was a successful industry built around the horse-drawn carriage. In all major industrial cities the primary mode of transportation was not the automobile, but rather horse power of a different kind. And while we can debate whether the auto industry in its current state will be the answer for tomorrow, we can certainly agree that the inability to adopt and change led to a great demise in the carriage sector. While newspapers and other traditional media channels are under greater pressures than search, it is a time for calculated risk to rule the day.

Andy Warhol once said, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” More recently, rapper Eminem asked if you had one shot, one moment to seize everything you wanted, would you capture it or let it slip away?

A recent meeting I had with Yahoo brought both of these quotes to mind. A Yahoo product rep told our group that the average search session lasts 15 minutes. That includes the back and forth between clicks and all queries in a given session. A week later, I polled a room of savvy client-side marketers on this issue, and the responses I got ranged from 15 seconds to 3 minutes. It wasn’t until guesses were exhausted that someone finally came onto the exceedingly high time expenditure.

This led me to ask the question: If you were willing to spend 15 minutes searching for something, is the current model of back and forth and refinement the best bet for the future? My personal sense is no, but then, the question becomes: What is?

Let’s begin by exploring what search today does well — immediacy — and what it does reasonably well: organization based on relevancy. Clearly that is an oversimplification, but these are at or near the top of the list. Of all that the search experience provides, encyclopedic knowledge and its organization by any set of guidelines is a massive shift in how the general public finds and is exposed to information. The fact someone can go from zero to being conversant on any topic with the help of Google should not be understated in the value equation. People expect Google to find them the best deals, the most insightful data, and generally create order in their otherwise chaotic world of searching for answers.

But it’s the setting of order — and on whose terms — that may cause a seismic shift in what types of platforms will deliver the intersection of content and intent. Today, the single largest arbiter of relevance is Google, period. This is a company that had moved forward with open as its mantra in social and mobile, and remains completely closed in another area: its search engine. Given this is the secret sauce that makes Google what it is, this is understandable. But it presents challenges for a society becoming more intelligent about the Internet and the social nature of the Web. Last month I discussed GoogleWiki, which begins to alter, in a very small way, the open nature of Google rankings, but this is a far cry from where a personalized search results page could get to very quickly.

It’s Not What You Know, it’s Who You Know
Today, connected communities of users on LinkedIn are able to post and respond to questions from their network on anything. At the same time, tweets back and forth are proliferating on the Net regarding anything of immediate relevancy to a given user of Twitter. The questions become, who will organize these conversations — and does that spur the next generation of search offerings? My hunch is that the network of many will eventually play a significant role in the relevancy of results. Clearly the limitation today of both LinkedIn and Twitter is that both are largely dependant on who you know. Your expertise extends as far as your social graph. And while these connections can eventually reach larger numbers, you are bound in part to sharing and receiving relevant insights from those you know.

For example, take two of the most connected search marketers I know, David Berkowitz and Kevin Lee. Kevin has asked hundreds of questions on LinkedIn and is in its elite 500+ connections status, with 78 pages of connections. David has 32 pages worth of connections. Both of these men are using LinkedIn to its fullest — and yet their network is likely no more than 5,000 total people. Clearly the scale of an individual’s network is not sufficient in broader context to provide the depth that a Google.com could provide. However, it is a certainty that if the topic was advertising, and more specifically, search or emerging media, that the network of connections would be more than capable to answer a given question within 15 minutes.

I’d Gladly Pay You Tuesday For a Hamburger Today
The trouble with LinkedIn today is that what it offers as a relevant engine can not function in real-time. To ask and then get answers requires more than 15 minutes in a row. If you were willing to ask the question, come back on Tuesday and review for greatest relevancy and act, then this model would be acceptable. Twitter can potentially be a better immediacy vehicle through its mobile application, but even that is limited by scale. What potentially changes all of this is the networks’ ability to scan questions and answers and make them accessible to you, in addition to the more latent responses of your own connection set. This functionality exists today in LinkedIn with relevancy sorting based on degrees of separation, but as this is not the original intent of the network its volume level is not a critical scale.

Same Musicians, New Band
In the search space we have Google and Yahoo, with Microsoft trying to work its way into a legitimate position. If you read the trades you know employees hop from one company to the other with some frequency. What began with Sheryl Sandberg’s high profile shift to Facebook was a movement of leaders out of pure search plays into more emerging social sites. If you’ve noticed my LinkedIn fixation in this column, it’s because of several very recent and very important additions. Last week, Dipchand “Deep” Nishar, who helped launch the Google mobile business, joined the company. On Dec. 17, TechCrunch reported that former Yahoo Network chief Jeff Weiner had agreed to join as president while founder Reid Hoffman was taking back over the role of CEO.

So we have the original visionary behind LinkedIn bringing in one of the key players in Google’s mobile space, and in Jeff Weiner, the guy who in all my dealings with Yahoo was able to more clearly communicate the Yahoo 360 social vision better than anyone else.

So a connected community, already dabbling in search for relevant insights, is bringing in skills from the Top 2 search engines with emphasis on mobile and scale along with social communities. This band of leaders may not play the same music, but while Madonna suggested it only takes four minutes to save the world, these guys may redefine what can be done in 15 minutes to searching.

Andy Warhol once said, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” More recently, rapper Eminem asked if you had one shot, one moment to seize everything you wanted, would you capture it or let it slip away?

A recent meeting I had with Yahoo brought both of these quotes to mind. A Yahoo product rep told our group that the average search session lasts 15 minutes. That includes the back and forth between clicks and all queries in a given session. A week later, I polled a room of savvy client-side marketers on this issue, and the responses I got ranged from 15 seconds to 3 minutes. It wasn’t until guesses were exhausted that someone finally came onto the exceedingly high time expenditure.

This led me to ask the question: If you were willing to spend 15 minutes searching for something, is the current model of back and forth and refinement the best bet for the future? My personal sense is no, but then, the question becomes: What is?

Let’s begin by exploring what search today does well — immediacy — and what it does reasonably well: organization based on relevancy. Clearly that is an oversimplification, but these are at or near the top of the list. Of all that the search experience provides, encyclopedic knowledge and its organization by any set of guidelines is a massive shift in how the general public finds and is exposed to information. The fact someone can go from zero to being conversant on any topic with the help of Google should not be understated in the value equation. People expect Google to find them the best deals, the most insightful data, and generally create order in their otherwise chaotic world of searching for answers.

But it’s the setting of order — and on whose terms — that may cause a seismic shift in what types of platforms will deliver the intersection of content and intent. Today, the single largest arbiter of relevance is Google, period. This is a company that had moved forward with open as its mantra in social and mobile, and remains completely closed in another area: its search engine. Given this is the secret sauce that makes Google what it is, this is understandable. But it presents challenges for a society becoming more intelligent about the Internet and the social nature of the Web. Last month I discussed GoogleWiki, which begins to alter, in a very small way, the open nature of Google rankings, but this is a far cry from where a personalized search results page could get to very quickly.

It’s Not What You Know, it’s Who You Know
Today, connected communities of users on LinkedIn are able to post and respond to questions from their network on anything. At the same time, tweets back and forth are proliferating on the Net regarding anything of immediate relevancy to a given user of Twitter. The questions become, who will organize these conversations — and does that spur the next generation of search offerings? My hunch is that the network of many will eventually play a significant role in the relevancy of results. Clearly the limitation today of both LinkedIn and Twitter is that both are largely dependant on who you know. Your expertise extends as far as your social graph. And while these connections can eventually reach larger numbers, you are bound in part to sharing and receiving relevant insights from those you know.

For example, take two of the most connected search marketers I know, David Berkowitz and Kevin Lee. Kevin has asked hundreds of questions on LinkedIn and is in its elite 500+ connections status, with 78 pages of connections. David has 32 pages worth of connections. Both of these men are using LinkedIn to its fullest — and yet their network is likely no more than 5,000 total people. Clearly the scale of an individual’s network is not sufficient in broader context to provide the depth that a Google.com could provide. However, it is a certainty that if the topic was advertising, and more specifically, search or emerging media, that the network of connections would be more than capable to answer a given question within 15 minutes.

I’d Gladly Pay You Tuesday For a Hamburger Today
The trouble with LinkedIn today is that what it offers as a relevant engine can not function in real-time. To ask and then get answers requires more than 15 minutes in a row. If you were willing to ask the question, come back on Tuesday and review for greatest relevancy and act, then this model would be acceptable. Twitter can potentially be a better immediacy vehicle through its mobile application, but even that is limited by scale. What potentially changes all of this is the networks’ ability to scan questions and answers and make them accessible to you, in addition to the more latent responses of your own connection set. This functionality exists today in LinkedIn with relevancy sorting based on degrees of separation, but as this is not the original intent of the network its volume level is not a critical scale.

Same Musicians, New Band
In the search space we have Google and Yahoo, with Microsoft trying to work its way into a legitimate position. If you read the trades you know employees hop from one company to the other with some frequency. What began with Sheryl Sandberg’s high profile shift to Facebook was a movement of leaders out of pure search plays into more emerging social sites. If you’ve noticed my LinkedIn fixation in this column, it’s because of several very recent and very important additions. Last week, Dipchand “Deep” Nishar, who helped launch the Google mobile business, joined the company. On Dec. 17, TechCrunch reported that former Yahoo Network chief Jeff Weiner had agreed to join as president while founder Reid Hoffman was taking back over the role of CEO.

So we have the original visionary behind LinkedIn bringing in one of the key players in Google’s mobile space, and in Jeff Weiner, the guy who in all my dealings with Yahoo was able to more clearly communicate the Yahoo 360 social vision better than anyone else.

So a connected community, already dabbling in search for relevant insights, is bringing in skills from the Top 2 search engines with emphasis on mobile and scale along with social communities. This band of leaders may not play the same music, but while Madonna suggested it only takes four minutes to save the world, these guys may redefine what can be done in 15 minutes to searching.

Below is the article from OMMA. Cheers, and here’s to a successful 2009.

Best Search: GroupM Search
By Susan Kuchinskas,  Thursday, January 1, 2009

Mass appeal

We bestowed the bronze award in search to GroupM Search – which isn’t a search agency at all, in the traditional sense. And that’s part of the reason they won. As the line between digital and traditional blurs, and clients consolidate their media buys, GroupM has responded by breaking the walls between search, interactive and traditional.

GroupM manages WPP’s media properties: Maxus, MediaCom, Mediaedge:cia and Mindshare, as well as Outrider, a dedicated search division, and Catalyst. GroupM Search was developed by merging the search offerings of Outrider, Catalyst, Quisma and 24/7 Real Media. It gets our nod not only for the success of its companies, making the group as a whole the largest agency buyer of search in the world, but also for its innovation in the structuring of its business.

Search is not an isolated direct response medium, and traditional media are driving search, so GroupM wants its agencies to be able to work across the entire spectrum of media and communications, says Chris Copeland, ceo of GroupM Search in the Americas. “There’s an important connection between the mass scale of traditional media, the freedom of digital media, and search, where consumers express their intent,” he says. “When we combine search with other media, it makes all those channels more successful for the client.”

Mission accomplished. With another shuffle of the deck in 2008, GroupM created what is likely the largest search specialist agency. At the same time, it placed branded search units within each of its four agencies, while maintaining the Outrider brand to serve clients that are not also clients of one of the big four. The company’s proprietary bid management platform, Decide DNA, is part of the confederation that falls under the rubric of GroupM Search. The entire search work force, including the team that develops and distributes tools and technology to the agency brands, totals 600.

The approach positions the companies to take advantage of the trend toward client consolidation of media buying. Such wins began in October 2007, when Mediaedge:cia tore all of at&t’s media business away from WPP rivals OMD and Interpublic. Now, says Rob Norman, ceo of GroupM Interaction, “If a client walks through the door of Mediaedge:cia, for example, and wants to buy any kind of advertising, they can buy it through Mediaedge:cia.”

The system works. This year, Dell wanted to consolidate its business, which had been dispersed among scads of vendors. In a big pitch that included all the major holding companies, WPP won with a proposal to have MediaCom handle all media buying – including search.

The GroupM pitch is clear: You want it, we got it. And GroupM Search has integrated search strategy across the board.

If you couldn’t make it to Search Insider Summit this winter but have a question you want posed to the experts here or about a specific topic on the agenda, shoot me a note at SearchFuel. I’ll get the question answered for you and deliver it here on SearchFuel.

A few hours into it and the promised agenda is already delivering. Gord Hotchkiss returned again as emcee, and the morning kicked off with an analysis of the role of search and online marketing in the Barack Obama/2008 Presidential campaign. Check back for a POV about that discussion before Search Insider is over.  Session discussions then looked at the role of analytics and data in search, and best practices in today’s environment of SEO and paid search. Day Two and Three promise to deliver debates about Google, emerging platforms and their relevancy to search, and discussions about in-house marketing in the bigger search world. I’m curious to hear from in-house marketers about what they are doing and the challenges they face that might bring insights into stronger agency relationships.

If you’ve never attended a Search Insider Summit, you should put MediaPost’s Spring and Winter summits on your radar for 2009.  Whether you’re a CMO, a marketer at the brand level, on the media side or on the search marketing side, it’s something to consider. (And if you’re an advertiser, email me and I’ll give you a great tip about MediaPost’s VIP perk so it’s an easy fit into your 09 budget.) Search Insider Summit is not a trade show. It could be called a conference.  But having attended and sponsored Search Insider Summit for three years now, I’ve decided it’s something different.  It’s a destination search marketing event that serves as a valuable forum to build relationships and really get insight into what some of the key industry leaders are thinking about and what they’re doing in the space. It’s search experts, engines, advertisers, competitors and other industry specialists coming together in a think-tank environment to discuss the current trends in search, challenge what is working and what’s not, and take a look at where the channel is going. You’ll start to see familiar faces time and again whom you look forward to hearing speak or catching up with during breaks; as you know, this is one of the few times of year you’ll have a few days to spend with them – Ron Belanger from Yahoo!, Ken Fadner from MediaPost and James Lamberti from comScore, just to name a few. And that’s just the morning for you. Your afternoon provides a well-deserved mental break and takes on a much different look (and level of exertion) with adventure networking activities, capped off with fabulous dinner galas at night to replace those calories you lost while skiing, golfing or white water rafting, unwind, have some wine and officially call it a day (only talking marketing if you want to).

SearchFuel will have more coverage from this year’s winter event, and I hope to see you here next Spring.

My issue isn’t with those that write about the space, but write about it through the lens of their financial agenda. There are certain people in the industry who write about Paid Search because that’s where their expertise is, just as there are blogs and authors who slant towards Organic Search. I have no issue with them. The issue I have is with the constant ink spilled explaining why one approach must be above all others and it is so at the detriment of everything else.

I wrote a column for MediaPost’s Search Insider earlier this month where I started with a pending panel discussion at SMX East on “Do Agencies Get Search?” That reference served as a quick jumping off point for ways that search marketers and agencies alike should think about search. Whether agencies got it or not was never up for debate or even discussion in the column. Yet, all comments about the post on the MediaPost site were about that panel topic and all from the bent of non-agency search marketers extolling why agencies couldn’t get it. Ability to read past the first paragraph when choosing to comment apparently doesn’t factor into some search marketers’ skill sets, either.

Likewise, how many columns from tool vendors must we have about why those who license not build are wrong. And how many paid authors must slam organic as being inefficient when measured by the standards of paid. You think? Paid Search is more measured and receives credit as last click for virtually all online activity; you think it’s going to out perform organic on those grounds? Those of us who write in this space have an obligation to do one of two things: bring a piece of our own expertise to the market which advances enlightenment or education, or provide pro-active forward thinking suggestions that cause the industry to think about its direction and the opportunities ahead.

Otherwise, it’s just pandering to the base and I can get enough of that from CNN and the presidential candidates.