Ashkan Karbasfrooshan

Google-DoubleClick Deal Makes aQuantive More Attractive

Jeff, all good points.

Re: "This serves all advertisers: those who value self-service scale and those who need full blown agency services."

The one area where Google might hit a snag is that most agencies view Google as a threat... Google is hoping that F500 advertisers and ad agencies turn to it, but most media planners and buyers want to shift their money across many media suppliers while relying on a centralized technology supplier.

DCLK or AQNT's Atlas is the tech supplier... advertisers choose on or the other granted, but on the media end of things, I do not think that advertisers will welcome Google as a trusted partner.

Agencies get 5% planning, 5% buying and 5% creative, Google effectively wants to take away the first 2 5% fees.

Then there's the publisher flight risk, MTV for example uses DCLK. Will they do that for much longer?

Lastly, DCLK's inventory does not in any way give advertisers access to the best, premium real estate.

Publishers control that directly... and since they will be more reluctant to use DCLK's software (and give up valuable data to Goog) and advertisers will be reluctant to trust Goog, I see a lot of risk here.

This was a defensive move against MSFT camouflaged as a synergistic one.

Of course, long term, what will pan out will be a combination of the things you say, I say, others say... but for now, that's my take!

Thanks.