I understood Google more than a decade before it existed. Better than it understands itself today.
In 1986 I published a book titled Marketing Without Advertising, based on a course I taught for eight years in my Noren Small Business Institute. It became the third largest selling marketing book in English over the next two decades and sold a 6th edition.
In Chapter One I disparage advertising and promote LISTing, which is what Google is. Google didn’t arrive for more than ten years. Advertising doesn’t work except for tourists and very young people who lack networks to recommend products and services. The research on advertising is vast and accurate. As my co-author, Raspberry, used to say: ‘Advertising is poop on the sidewalk that you almost step on.’
Today the internet provides some customer recommendations and warnings which is a modest help but seldom reliable. Even Amazon is not honest in its recommendations. Listings include all forms of notice about the location and nature of the business. It includes college alumni lists of current locations, telephone books, almost any reference that a potential customer will use to find the type of business or service he/she is looking for. That is precisely what Google is. Google is a listing not advertising. It is at least 100 times more powerful than advertising.
When I first saw it used by my clients it was very powerful and effective. I knew then that Google would be far more important than advertising. It was destined to consume 80% of all global advertising. I bought stock in Google immediately and my shares increased by more than ten times. Thank you Google.