By Bob Heyman, Chief Search Officer; Mediasmith, Inc.  bheyman@mediasmith.com

To tell you why search is the Antawn Jamison of Marketing, first I have to tell you who Antawn (pronounced like ‘Antoine’) Jamison is. Because, like search, Antawn Jamison does not get the respect he deserves. But, I digress. Antawn Jamison is an All Star NBA player for the Washington Wizards. This season he led his team into the playoffs, an unheard of occurrence for the lowly Wizards. What is relatively unique about Jamison is the nature of his game. He’s not a dominant center, like Shaquile O’Neil, or a flashy shooting guard like Michael Jordan. Instead he’s a team player who does the dirty work close to the basket, tipping in a teammates' errant shot, gobbling up rebounds and converting them to baskets. Do you get my drift here?

Search is just like that. It has a unique role in the marketing mix. Where most media is aimed at creating demand, search media does the dirty work of converting that demand to sales, leads or any other measurable you want to track. If a search campaign is properly planned, it is able to “tip in” the inquiry that came to the mis-remembered tag line or the mis-spelled brand name. It can be the Antawn Jamison of the marketing team, turning the good work of others on the team into sales. Converting the close miss into a basket. Of course, as I said earlier, Antawn doesn’t get any respect. Despite scoring back to back 50 point games for his first team, the Golden State Warriors, they shipped him off to the Dallas Mavericks. Now the Golden State Warriors have an owner with a curse, and a team history of trading away players that blossom into all stars with their next team. And so it happened with Jamison, becoming the NBA’s “6th man” of the year for the Mavericks. The 6th man is the first reserve off the bench whose unselfish play is a spark to the team. For the Mavs, Antawn fit that role to a T and the Mavericks made the playoffs. Despite that, the Mavs traded Jamison to the Wizards, who finally seem to appreciate his skills. It seems that NBA teams hunger for flashier players. Stars like Michael Jordan. In my NBA meets marketing analogy, Jordan is the equivalent of the 30-second TV spot, still the glamour boy of the marketing mix, pulling down the big bucks. But, increasingly, both basketball and marketing are becoming true “team” games. In neither world can one superstar insure victory anymore. The 2004 NBA title was won by the Detroit Pistons, who lacked a superstar but had lots of “Jamison like” players (preeminently, Ben Wallace) who happily did the dirty work that wins championships.

Similarly, search does not get much respect. True, it is recognized as an unparalleled direct marketing vehicle. But its capacity to contribute to reach and frequency goals and its vital role in the branding cycle are largely ignored and undocumented. Just as the Pistons success has renewed an appreciation for the importance of “team” and “doing the dirty work” in the NBA, marketing success today increasingly comes to those who understand the importance of both values. Marketing victories are now achieved by bringing together complementary strategies in all media, including search. Marketing is a “team” game. Every campaign should utilize search’s Antawn Jamison – like ability to do the dirty work of converting shots to scores (or searches to sales).

Bob Heyman is Chief Search Officer at Mediasmith. He is credited with having pioneered the agency side of Search Engine Marketing as a co-founder of early full service web agency Cybernautics which was acquired by USWeb in 1997. His next company, eMarketing Partners, was acquired by the Catenas Corp. in 2000. He is the co-author of Net Result.2 (New Riders) and The Auction App (McGraw Hill). He also co-founded CybeReps, acquired by Interep. His clients have included IBM, NEC, Ask Jeeves, Netscape, Intel, SGI, Avon, Bristol Myers Squibb, REI, Time Warner, Sony, Macromedia and ABC. He is credited with having coined the phrases “edutainment” and “search engine optimization”.

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