I was rooting around in my gmail account today so I could forward Jen some exciting news about our friend Akiva being named a finalist in the 2006 MERCURY Latino Lens Short Film Challenge (congratulations, again!) and lo and behold - my gmail sponsored link ad was:
Need a movie cameraman? - robertoblasini.com - Hire this award-winning D.P. before you can’t afford him. L.A. based.
The ad itself isn’t all that remarkable, but what tickles my funny bone is that an individual can easily and rapidly promote themselves worldwide doing something they love. It isn’t often that I talk about Google’s great leveling effect, but this was an example too good to pass up.
Five years ago, if you wanted to hire a director of photography, you had to find an agency that represented them, have a referral or chew through the right phone directories. Today, thanks to Google AdWords and the decreasing costs of technology, I can type “director of photography” into Google and have 6 at my fingertips in seconds.
For small and medium businesses, having unfettered access to top talent via the search engines fosters innovation and increases productivity. Using freelancers and independents can dramatically expand the range of products and services you can afford to offer without increasing your overhead.
One last comment about the ad - he’s leaving some serious money on the table. Simply by changing his ad to read:
Need a movie cameraman? - RobertoBlasini.com - Hire this award-winning D.P. before you can’t afford him. L.A. based
Using initial capitals with domain names significantly increases ad performance. Making this change could increase his ad click through percentage by as much as 13% based on tests we’ve done using Google AdWords. Little changes can mean huge performance increases.
