Online ad budgets do not reflect online activity, says Google’s O’Neill

TORONTO—Companies’ online advertising budgets do not reflect the increasing online activity of Canadians, suggesting there is plenty of room to grow, Google Canada country director Chris O'Neill told The Wire Report. "The thing to look at is the percentage of time that Canadians spend online versus the percentage that people invest in advertising," O'Neill said in an interview Tuesday after taking part in a panel discussion in Toronto organized by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) as part of its annual general meeting. According to the CRTC’s 2010 Communications Monitoring Report, about 95 per cent of Canadian households have access to wireline broadband services, and a Statistics Canada survey published in May said that 80 per cent of Canadians were Internet users in 2009. Ipsos-Reid also reported in a poll last March that Canadians spend more time online than watching television. But according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada (IAB), Canadian businesses dedicate just 11 per cent of their marketing budgets to online advertising. "I see a real opportunity for Canadian businesses to take advantage of Canadians’ appetite for knowledge, information, and their engagement online," O'Neill wrote in a follow-up email to The Wire Report. O'Neill, a Canadian who recently took on his new position with Google in Canada, said the consumer experience has been heightened by the increasing speed with which people can navigate technology and the Internet. O'Neill described his role as assisting Canadian firms to exploit the Internet to their commercial advantage. "My job is to help Canadian businesses get the most out of the web," O'Neill said during the panel discussion. "Collectively, we need to lower the barriers and reduce the friction, so that everyone, small businesses, big businesses, offline, online, can harness the power of the web to make Canada a digital force and have its rightful place in the global economy." O'Neill called for Canadian marketers to be more proactive in using the digital space to reach customers. As a predominantly exporting country, Canada has not grasped the power of the Internet as a mechanism to propel exports, he said. The search giant—whose main business is brokering online advertising—has announced an expansion into Canada to garner a bigger share of the business-to-business market. "If businesses do not embrace the digital economy in the way we see in other parts of the world, that gap will grow," O'Neill said. "It is a shame we don't see more companies that really master digital." O'Neill said Google Canada is now working with major brands as well as small businesses across the country to educate them about the advantages of the Internet as a marketing and communication platform. Google recently launched one such initiative with The Globe and Mail. The IAB reported in August that online advertising revenues in Canada exceeded expectations in 2009, reaching $1.82 billion. Mitch Joel, president of digital marketing and communications agency Twist Image, author of Six Pixels of Separation, and vice-chair of the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA), said during a separate speech at the event that the traditional rules of advertising do not apply to interactive, digital advertising. "Everyone's experience is different ," he said. " when we watch television, we all roughly have the same experience." Increasingly, consumers are now using social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to decide what hotel to stay at when travelling, rather than using search engines like Google. "When I ask a question like, ‘Where should I stay,’ I can get responses from people I know," Joel said. The panel also discussed the need to make high-speed Internet access available to as many Canadians as possible at an affordable cost. "I think having a really great broadband infrastructure for the country would create enormous dividends," webnames.ca co-founder John Demco said. Demco helped create the dot-ca domain name in 1998 and was its initial registrar. "Getting fibre to as many places as possible is certainly one way to do it. I think it would be a very great investment." Broadband infrastructure should start to be regarded as a utility and be given the same importance as building roads and delivering power, Demco said in an interview. The sense of cooperation that ensured the building of roads and the distribution of power in Canada should guide the development of broadband infrastructure in hard-to-reach geographic areas, he said. "There is a persistent issue about broadband access to low-density areas," Demco said, noting that the digital divide between urban and rural areas continues. "We have to perhaps look back at how rural electrification was accomplished. We figured out a way to do it because it was important enough for the country as a whole." news@thewirereport.ca

Online ad budgets do not reflect online activity, says Google’s O’Neill

Broadcast | September 23, 2010

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