Bryan Wiener, CEO of 360i, on Google/Yahoo [Adweek]

Bryan Wiener, CEO of 360i, is featured in Adweek today discussing Google and Yahoo’s recently announced search advertising pact and the potential impact for marketers:

Adweek
Yahoo! Turns to Google for Help

Yahoo! bets search ad deal won’t undermine its market position

By Brian Morrissey
NEW YORK Yahoo! announced last week that it had struck a search advertising deal with rival Google, betting it can increase revenue through the arrangement and still pursue its strategy of marrying search and display advertising.

Yahoo! executives have said they believe the search and display ad markets will converge in the near future…The danger for Yahoo! lies in attempting to have it both ways, said Bryan Wiener, CEO of 360i, a New York digital agency. Google’s share of searches is already 62 percent, according to comScore, but Wiener said, among 360i’s large-company client base, its share of search advertising dollars is much greater than that. Yahoo! draws about 17 percent of searches. If it falls much below 15 percent, it will no longer be efficient for advertisers to participate in it, effectively giving Google a near-monopoly in the vital search ad market.

“This partial outsourcing is going to be greeted by marketers as a confusing message about whether they’re in this for the long term,” Wiener said. “It hurts the perception of them being an integrated search and display platform.” Read complete article