In a bold move, “Google Inc. this week plans to let businesses start buying ads in more than 50 daily newspapers through its Web site, a move that ratchets up the Internet company’s efforts to broker advertising in offline media,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Bid-based, easy-to-buy, paper-based contextual ads for the small business? Brilliant.
Although Google’s tagline is, “do no evil,” I think we’re all convinced that Google Inc is no pussy. Google had better be careful. Wealth plus power almost always results in hubris and arrogance; hubris and arrogance almost always result in marketing myopia.
More from the WSJ: “Under the three-month test effort, a group of more than 100 Google advertisers will be able to place bids for space in newspapers including the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer. The move is designed to make it easy for the hundreds of thousands of companies already buying online ads through Google’s system to begin or increase spending on print ads, a prospect hailed by newspaper executives as a new revenue opportunity at a challenging time for the industry. The newspaper industry’s struggle with reader defection and rising competition for ads from the Web and other media has recently worsened, underscored by the latest round of mixed earnings results and broadly lower circulation numbers.”
This is smart and just shows how hungry newspapers like the Post and the Times are for advertisers. Until recently, most papers, the Washington Post is a prime example, considered their online properties to be redheaded stepchildren.
Now, the success of the Post Online reveals that the new media advertising model is not only more flexible for advertisers, but also more profitable for newspapers, “The newspaper publishers’ participation in Google’s test shows how declining ad revenue and uncertainty about the future are forcing newspaper companies to explore new ways of doing business.”
Like many new media models, the online is vigorously influencing the off; whereas, the “ad buyer, ad seller” model never really worked as well as the bid and buy your own does. And this is flowing upstream.
The Google AdWords contextual ads model is brilliant! When crafting Google AdWords ads, it feels like you’re writing a pithy little classified ad — or even a haiku — rather than a proper ad. It breaks down the barrier-to-entry between Madisson Avenue and something you can do as a small businessman, “Newspapers traditionally have staffs of sales representatives who, working from a pricing rate schedule, negotiate orders for ads and handle any follow-up with advertisers. The Google system automates the process, allowing advertisers to see what ad sizes, sections and days a given newspaper is offering, and then bid based on those criteria.”
Most small businesses have already dabbled in Google AdWords and probably someone already has an account. Newspaper advrtising would eventually be hooked into the current Google AdWords interface, “advertisers submit ads digitally through the system, which is linked to Google’s existing Web-based interface for Internet ads, and receive online confirmation after the ads have run.”
All you need as a small businessman is some creativity, some seed cash, and some sticktoitiveness. It’s gorgeous.
This is all you can do with Google AdWords ads:
Headline (max 25 characters)
Description line 1 (max 35 characters)
Description line 2 (max 35 characters)
Display URL (max 35 characters)
So, for example:
Don’t Save the Whales
Take care of yourself and your kids
Whales can take care of themselves
www.chrisabraham.com
Isn’t it like a haiku?
Don’t save the whales
Take care of yourself and your kids
Whales can take care of themselves
Ah, so relaxing.
More from the Journal, “The print ad test comes as Google ramps up efforts to broker ads beyond the Web, an important initiative for increasing its revenue. The Mountain View, Calif., company has said it plans to target print, radio and television advertising. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt last month told reporters that Google would eventually have 1,000 people working on its radio ad brokering effort alone, which compares with about 9,400 total workers as of Sept. 30. ‘Anything that we can do to improve the economic efficiency of the old model [of advertising] transfers money from the old model to the new model,’ he said in an interview.”
Google said, “it plans to target print, radio and television advertising?” Very interesting.
Just to give you some perspective on current Google AdWords online contextual advertising impact, “Google had more than 400,000 advertisers that bought online ads using its system, according to an internal company document from last year;” also, according to BizReport, “a British study is citing that Google is close to overtaking the UK’s top commercial TV channels for total advertising revenue. The Internet search engine’s 2006 U.K. revenues is predicted to top Channel Four’s own financial forecast of $1.5 billion.”
Amazing.
