No quick fixes for start-ups.

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Lots of start-ups headed by officers who grew up in the Internet age believe they can create successful consumer businesses with marketing budgets in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. “All we need is a good viral video, a good flash animation and some strong SEM (search engine marketing.)”   Poor babies. 

 

Kellogg is touting the efficacy of its online ROI and says it will reallocate 10% of its TV production budget in that direction.  Very daring! Kellogg’s budget is $1B a year and consumers know the Kellogg name. No start-up, they.
 
Now you can tell me that Google, when it started, didn’t do a lot of mass media advertising, and I’ll agree. But it gained awareness by other means. As a brilliant search tool, it created its own relevance and word of mouth and media coverage made Google a household word. Google broke ground and people needed it.  Start-ups with a good product – I said good, not great – need to create awareness with serious blocking and tackling. I’m not saying it can’t be done with a couple of hundred thousand in spend, but it is going to take the creative mind of one of the industry’s top five percenters…and those men and women don’t come cheap. See the conundrum?