Scramble for online advertising budgets
Marketing and planning must be separated, otherwise online advertising will remain a Wild West story
Marketing and planning must be separated, otherwise online advertising will remain a Wild West storyBy Thomas Brenzikofer and Clemens HörlerThe online advertising market is still small. This is why many media agencies leave online media planning to internet marketers. Some of them are accused of spending their budgets primarily on those sites that they themselves have under contract. This could damage the reputation of online advertisers.
"We seem to be begrudged our success," says Christoph Morach, Managing Director of Qualiclick Switzerland. This was prompted by accusations made by Martin Radelfinger, CEO of competitor AdLink Switzerland, in an interview with Netzwoche. Radelfinger accused Qualiclick of abusing its dual function as a media planner and website marketer to dominate the market: "Marketers like Qualiclick provide website operators with high guarantees and are then virtually forced to book the media budgets they manage on these sites. This makes neutral media planning impossible."
This is grist to the mill for Daniel Neukomm, Managing Director of online media agency Euromedia: "So-called marketers have to decide whether they want to do media planning or market websites. A hybrid solution is only a hindrance to the development of the Swiss online advertising market," he told WerbeWoche.
Gianni Abner BGMedia Internet, one of the first Internet departments in traditional media agencies, explains: "The fact that such a lack of transparency has arisen is due to the fact that the media agencies only became involved with online advertising late or not at all."
Morach was surprised by the accusations made by competitor AdLink. He also believes that a separation of powers between marketing and planning makes sense. However, the market is currently not ready for this: "This is precisely why we have entered into a cooperation with the BSW to train media agencies for the planning of online campaigns." In the long term, the company clearly wants to concentrate on marketing rather than media planning. "The fact that we offer media planning is due to historical reasons. Switzerland is now a small market and, given the volume, it is not worthwhile for many media agencies to build up the corresponding resources," explains Morach.
Other marketers also seem to be thinking about the separation of powers. AdLink, which has agreed an exclusive contract with Tamedia, would like to concentrate on the marketing business in future. Robert Schmidli, interim head of Real Media Switzerland, on the other hand, sees no problem with the dual role of marketer and planner: "Apart from Borsalino, we have practically no exclusive contracts. We are therefore positioning ourselves as a general contractor for online advertising."
Active Agent is also sticking to its core competence of "independent" media planning. However, ActiveAgent Media is to be clearly separated from the advertising network ActiveAgent Network and the customer loyalty program bonus.net as an independent company in the course of the year. In terms of marketing, ActiveAgent will continue not to rely on exclusive contracts, explains Claudio Cittarini, Sales Manager of ActiveAgent (Switzerland) AG.
Guarantees and dumping prices for the "Big Brother" website?
The non-transparent situation is not only problematic for advertising clients, whose budgets end up with the loudest seller. Website operators are also under pressure. They practically have to hand over the marketing of their site to those companies that also have the largest online advertising budgets - for fear of being ignored. With a market share of around 40 percent, Qualiclick has a good hand in this game.
Morach vehemently denies that Qualicklick is actively exploiting this situation. Various website operators who have confirmed to WerbeWoche that they are trying to put pressure on Qualiclick see things differently. For example, one website operator claims that Qualicklick has demanded special discounts in return for "active marketing". It is also rumored that Qualicklick is trying to buy up the market with sometimes massive dumping prices and promised sales guarantees - in the case of "Big Brother" it is said to be 400,000 francs for the second round. Morach comments: "We have not grown thanks to price dumping, but thanks to our performance. The online advertising business cannot be based on guaranteed sales. That would be far too risky."
Exclusivity
"We seem to be begrudged our success," says Christoph Morach, Managing Director of Qualiclick Switzerland. This was prompted by accusations made by Martin Radelfinger, CEO of competitor AdLink Switzerland, in an interview with Netzwoche. Radelfinger accused Qualiclick of abusing its dual function as a media planner and website marketer to dominate the market: "Marketers like Qualiclick provide website operators with high guarantees and are then virtually forced to book the media budgets they manage on these sites. This makes neutral media planning impossible."
This is grist to the mill for Daniel Neukomm, Managing Director of online media agency Euromedia: "So-called marketers have to decide whether they want to do media planning or market websites. A hybrid solution is only a hindrance to the development of the Swiss online advertising market," he told WerbeWoche.
Gianni Abner BGMedia Internet, one of the first Internet departments in traditional media agencies, explains: "The fact that such a lack of transparency has arisen is due to the fact that the media agencies only became involved with online advertising late or not at all."
Morach was surprised by the accusations made by competitor AdLink. He also believes that a separation of powers between marketing and planning makes sense. However, the market is currently not ready for this: "This is precisely why we have entered into a cooperation with the BSW to train media agencies for the planning of online campaigns." In the long term, the company clearly wants to concentrate on marketing rather than media planning. "The fact that we offer media planning is due to historical reasons. Switzerland is now a small market and, given the volume, it is not worthwhile for many media agencies to build up the corresponding resources," explains Morach.
Other marketers also seem to be thinking about the separation of powers. AdLink, which has agreed an exclusive contract with Tamedia, would like to concentrate on the marketing business in future. Robert Schmidli, interim head of Real Media Switzerland, on the other hand, sees no problem with the dual role of marketer and planner: "Apart from Borsalino, we have practically no exclusive contracts. We are therefore positioning ourselves as a general contractor for online advertising."
Active Agent is also sticking to its core competence of "independent" media planning. However, ActiveAgent Media is to be clearly separated from the advertising network ActiveAgent Network and the customer loyalty program bonus.net as an independent company in the course of the year. In terms of marketing, ActiveAgent will continue not to rely on exclusive contracts, explains Claudio Cittarini, Sales Manager of ActiveAgent (Switzerland) AG.
Guarantees and dumping prices for the "Big Brother" website?
The non-transparent situation is not only problematic for advertising clients, whose budgets end up with the loudest seller. Website operators are also under pressure. They practically have to hand over the marketing of their site to those companies that also have the largest online advertising budgets - for fear of being ignored. With a market share of around 40 percent, Qualiclick has a good hand in this game.
Morach vehemently denies that Qualicklick is actively exploiting this situation. Various website operators who have confirmed to WerbeWoche that they are trying to put pressure on Qualiclick see things differently. For example, one website operator claims that Qualicklick has demanded special discounts in return for "active marketing". It is also rumored that Qualicklick is trying to buy up the market with sometimes massive dumping prices and promised sales guarantees - in the case of "Big Brother" it is said to be 400,000 francs for the second round. Morach comments: "We have not grown thanks to price dumping, but thanks to our performance. The online advertising business cannot be based on guaranteed sales. That would be far too risky."
Exclusivity
An exclusive contract is when a marketer takes over the logistics, handling and marketing of advertising space on a site. They receive a commission for this. However, this does not mean that other intermediaries cannot also book space on a site. If this is the case, the marketer usually passes on the sales commission to the intermediary. (tbr)
