May 21, 2007 | Monday
Google Zeitgeist, Europe
By Dylan Thwaites, CEO in Search Engines |Google |Search Expertise |Search Research
“I report from the Grove Hotel, Hertfordshire, Google Zeitgeist Europe reaches its second Birthday, last year it was opened by David Cameron the next Prime Minister after Brown, this year it was opened by David Milliband, the next Prime Minister after Cameron. Zeitgeist is the very best forward thinking event in the Corporate World, but even Zeitgeist is struggling to keep up to speed.
Last night over cocktails I had the unusual experience of owning the slowest growth company in the conversation. To my left, Google, 9 years old and worth $146bn and to my right Endemol (makers of Big Brother and Deal or No Deal) 13 years old and worth 4 billion euros. This morning we had the beautiful minds of Sir Martin Sorrell (WPP Group) and James Murdoch (BSkyB) trying to make sense of the dramatic changes in our industry.
Everyone seems to agree that the three landmark deals, two of them in the last week, (Google – Doubleclick $3bn; WPP – 24/7 $650m; Microsoft – Aquantive $6bn) are highly significant. Nobody is able to call the consequences.
Sorrell said, “The moves send shockwaves around the industry, it affects clients, media owners and agencies”. He believes that of these three groups, agencies are the most protected, “We are here to advise on change, to measure and use tools to implement opportunities”
Murdoch reinforced the change motiff explaining how BSkyB has, “a constant appetite for change, you’ve got to think today I’m going to eat change for breakfast”. Sorrell was less visual, “Change is going to get more rapid and deeper”
The audience got the chance to ask the panel questions – ostensibly about the panel topic “branding”. Zero interest in branding - two of the three questions were on the theme “Is Google the enemy?” Sorrell says he invented the word “Frenemy” to describe his $200m relationship with Google, Nikesh Arora, CEO EMEA for Google pretended to mistake this for “Friend of Me”, so Sorrell now uses Froe (Friend /Foe). All very light hearted, but at the root of this there is an earthquake of change – and I for one love it. We are so gloriously fortunate to live in interesting times.
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