Advertisers have been chasing their audiences from traditional media to the online world; Google has passed them going in the other direction.
Leo Burnett, meet Google. The denizens of the Googleplex still have the ability to surprise their observers. For quite a while, the concept of “Google Print” applied to its initiative to create a massive index of libraries. But for readers of Maximum PC and PC Magazine, the phrase will mean print ads by Google.
A Cnet News article details the simplicity of the plan. Google buys ad space in the print world, and resells it to some AdWords advertisers. That story reports how Google approached Inksite in May about being part of a print campaign; they’ll be one of five advertisers appearing in PC Magazine.
“Because we had been one of their AdWords advertisers, they thought we would be a good candidate to try their new advertising,” Inksite’s president Michael Keen said in the story. The full page of advertising can be seen here.
The prospect of Google as ad agency, a field dominated by long time Madison Avenue firms, could be a simple experiment: Google tries it simply because it can. But Google is very much an advertising company, with virtually 100 percent of its revenues derived from AdWords and AdSense sales.
Search engine pundit Danny Sullivan sees the move as a beginning and not a one-time deal. “Not only doesn’t the move surprise me, but I personally expect we’ll see more of it. There’s no reason why Google or Yahoo can’t move some of their advertisers into the print world,” he posted at Search Engine Watch.
The foray into print advertising could then be a significant value-add for the advertiser who wants more impact beyond contextual ads and sponsored links. Google will likely price it accordingly, and that price will be dependent on what it pays for ad space. This test involves smaller firms; the next test could see Microsoft and Oracle instead of Software602 and Cyberscrub.
“Google’s been working to add more oomph to its creative for a while. Clearly they have a desire to offer more to advertisers than just a text link,” Cnet quotes Tim Hanlon, senior vice president of emerging contacts at ad agency Publicis Groupe.
David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
