eBay Pulls Google Ads Over Marketing Stunt 151
odoketa writes "According to the BBC, it seems Google scheduled a party to promote their payment system (Google Checkout) on the same day as a big eBay meeting, and this made eBay mad enough to pull their ads with Google. According to the story, eBay says it's merely an 'ongoing experiment' on their marketing. 'Google hoped to alert PayPal users who would have been in Boston attending the eBay Live annual seller event to its own service, according to market experts. It could also have been seen as part of an effort to get eBay to accept Google Checkout, currently banned on the online auctioneer's site. But in a contrite manner, Google cancelled its rival function a day before it was due to happen.'"
UK promo was good (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:UK promo was good (Score:3, Interesting)
Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide (Score:5, Interesting)
Ebay is in a bad position, really, because they don't drive their own traffic. If Google decides to launch an auction website, it'd be a real bloodbath, because Ebay is nothing without it's famously massive traffic, much of with it has to buy.
I suspect that they have an agreement with Google that prevents Google from implementing a simple competitor in the auction space.
What happens if Ebay boycotts Google? We'll get less "buy used baby's from Ebay" spam. That's it.
Re:eBay wouldn't do that (Score:5, Interesting)
This got me thinking of advertising in general. Do consumers REALLY need another 5,000 Coke commericals nationwide today, too? Are they afraid that we'll all of a sudden forget they exist? Afraid that people who like Coke would switch to Pepsi thanks to those ads so we'd better innundate them with our ads to keep that from happening?
There are defining sites out there on the internet. You wouldn't google for online auctions unless you're looking for an eBay alternative. You wouldn't goggle for user shared video sites unless you're looking for a YouTube alternative.
Or, at least I wouldn't.
Re:UK promo was good (Score:5, Interesting)
Once Google removes this restriction, I'll probably use them to accept small payments rather than use PayPal.
/DM/
The BBC is spinning this... (Score:4, Interesting)
Their use of the word "angry" in the headline is preposterous. This is shamefully hyperbolic sensationalist tabloid journalism -- something the BBC is pandering to more and more -- they really need to fire some editors. Also, it seems to me that someone in the Richmond offices of eBay has the ear of someone in the BBC, eBay gets an astonishingly high amount of free publicity from the BBC (The BBC does not allow advertising -- um, yeah, sure...). Again, they really need to fire some editors, I'd be astonished if at least some of them were not taking backhanders every now and again -- it certainly looks that way.
Why would a medium sized corporation be "angry". And particularly in this case, although eBay is the largest user of Adwords, eBay is still a very small company compared to Google. eBay has no alternative to Adwords. It's use them, or fail trying something else.
While I'm personally convinced that eBay's management are far from the sharpest executives out there, they are at least smart enough to realize that they need Google much more than Google needs them. Sure, there's some Corporate game playing around checkout etc, and perhaps this move is simply a reflection of that. eBay, like any firm, needs to try to assert themselves occasionally to negotiate better deals. This is business. This is not news.
If Google was planning their own negative party then perhaps it would be good for someone to examine their mission statement -- while not exactly evil, that action isn't something that would give any company the moral high ground.
This is all a storm in a teacup. The whole thing reeks of publicity stunt. Publicity stunts are things the BBC falls for regularly -- especially where eBay are concerned.
Re:Ebay/Google (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly. eBay is like Google; you don't go to Yahoo to find Google, and so you don't go to Google to find eBay. This was a calculated decision, not necessarily a bad one. If people believe it was a suicidal decision, recall the numerous fee increases that caused the community to throw up their arms in revolt. You would think that was suicidal, but eBay is still just as strong.