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Loyalty is Dead; Long Live Marketplace Amorality
By dave_pasternack | April 17, 2008
Loyalty, it’s said, is dead. Already buried is the traditional loyalty which corporations used to display towards those working for them and the reciprocal loyalty of workers toward these organizations. Loyalty towards brands is an illusion, especially in a recession, when consumers figure out that they can get the same value from a non-branded good as from an over-priced one with a fancy package. And in search marketing, loyalty has died a very hard death indeed, and yet nobody’s bemoaning it (except, it seems, myself).
The absence of loyalty from the search marketplace is a rude awakening for many old-school ad agencies. For years, being known as the guy who booked a million dollars a month worth of airtime on a network counted for something. Beyond the invitation to the glitzy upfront, such loyalty often translated into negotiating leverage. The guys who spent money were rewarded (even though it wasn’t really their money they were spending) with a volume discount. That was just the way advertising worked.
Today, there’s no loyalty at all. If you’re the guy spending a million dollars a month on Google or on one of the other engines, you’re treated the same as some shlub with a $10 per day PPC budget. You not only get bupkis as a reward but the SE’s do everything they can to undercut your position. For example, Google has a very active sales force recruiting competitors who will do everything they can to make your existing SEM strategy unprofitable. You’d think they’d show a little loyalty to the guy who’s spent a half billion dollars over the last two years, but that’s not the way these guys think. This isn’t bitterness, folks; it’s just reality. Why expect loyalty from anybody when we’ve selectively bred it out of our whole culture?
Topics: I'm Mad as Hell and I'm Not Clicking on It Anymore, Search Engine Marketing |
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