17th
Mandy de Waal does not mince words about Google’s strategy in emerging markets and the leadership of the country office in South Africa. We had interactions with Google SA’s country manager, Stafford Masie, as well — and they were along the same lines as Mandy describes.
Her main point:
Google South Africa set the cat among the pigeons when country manager Stafford Masie revealed intentions to moderate SA’s search industry, saying some e-marketing companies were committing “fraud” against customers.
Masie stated “Google-certified agencies” would be introduced in early 2009 to stop local search marketing companies making a financial “killing … off ill-informed clients”. Google SA said five e-marketing agencies already working across Google’s current base of 30 named and active clients will lead this programme. Google SA said the agencies in question would pioneer the programme to help determine what would be required for agency certification. Masie said after this process, certification will be made available to “all and everyone”.
Google’s move to moderate the local search market was met with skepticism and distrust by local search marketing companies that acknowledge questionable ethics have been practiced by a few agencies, but say Google caused this problem to begin with.
