Google wants to make friends with your agency

by Andrew McCormick, revolutionmagazine.com 24-Jun-09, 09:26

LONDON - Google, long accused by agencies of aiming to cut them out of the loop, has taken a big step to better relations by creating AgencyLand, an education portal on all things digital which is free to partner agencies.

Google is testing the new AgencyLand platform in the US with agences including Aegis' Carat Interpublic's Initiative and WPP's Ogilvy and plans to roll it out to all major search spenders.

AgencyLand is a free training portal for agencies. It aims to train agency staff on digital marketing and how Google can play a part in all aspects of digital. Tutorials so far include 'How YouTube complements TV advertising' and 'Google maps and ads'. The mix of tutorials is designed to prove beneficial for digital experts as well as planners and buyers of a different specialism.

It also brings together Google's range of planning and measuring tools and aims provides insight into the effect of search on display and other variables

Almost every agency has a story in which they allege that Google has gone straight to a client, looking for a direct sell rather than working with agencies. And for every story there has been a Google denial of any intention to cut agenceis out of the loop.

Google's country sales director for the UK Mark Howe has acknowledged in the past that there may have been some instances of staff contacting advertisers directly but insists that these are very much anomalies rather than company policy.

While some may say that it makes sense for Google to have a direct relationship with advertisers rather than feeding the agency beast, Google recognises that in a world without agencies, its efforts to educate advertisers and get them to manage their search accounts efficiently could fall flat.

Agencies may still be bitter about Google ending its Best Practice Funding scheme, which remunerated agencies that spend big on search. It seems, however, that Google is trying out a new, lower cost way to make friends with agencies.

A spokesman for Google said that there are "No plans yet," to launch AgencyLand in the UK but said that Google already "has lots of these initiatives for UK agencies in different guises."

He cited Ad Toolkit and Barometer as examples.