It appears that Google has set its covetous eyes on yet another advertising realm: television. With recent comments by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the registration of some new domains by Google last week, and with some connect-the-dots speculation it seems that all indications point to Google expanding its AdWords platform into television.
At this year’s SES conference in San Jose, Danny Sullivan got to talk with Schmidt about topics including the potential in television ads.
In the interview, Schmidt said that “Targeted measurable television ads or video ads on the Internet are starting now. We at Google have thought about maybe we could do targeted measurable television ads on real television. So we’re thinking about using our advertising system and our targetability for every from of advertising. So you [ask], why would we do that? Because it’s a big opportunity to provide greater value to advertisers. It’s also a better value to provide to end users. When you watch television, you see ads that are clearly not targeted for you. When you’re driving along in your car, you hear ads that are clearly not targeted at you. It’s a waste of your time.”
In addition to this major suggestion, ResourceShelf revealed that Google had registered Googleadsensetvsite.com/net/org last Thursday.
Garett Rogers at ZDNet pointed out that Google’s VP of search products and user experience Marissa Mayer had once said that “Television should consider Google a friend, not foe.”
Rogers also recalled the fact that Google and Viacom inked a partnership deal in late August, allowing publishers to place television content on their sites through AdSense, which he says might be an alternative explanation for the registration of those domains.
David A. Utter at WebProNews suggests that Google would most likely test the television ad waters by working with a small network. Utter points out that because of ties between Schmidt and Al Gore, Current TV seems to be a logical fit. Gore is one of the co-founders of Current TV, which has been broadcasting short “pod” segments since August 1, 2005.
Google has shown clear intent to get into more traditional advertising realms such as newspaper and radio, so the suggestion that the company is looking to get into television does not come as a big surprise.
With technologies being developed to bridge the gap between the Internet and television sets, the potential certainly seems to be there for Google.
Sources:
http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/
marketinginsider/wpn-50-20060911GoogleTVAd
PartnerGuessWho.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=321
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