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Google Forays into Print Advertising
dotpavan writes "It's not that if Google farts, it makes headlines, but this move is a smart one, at least for a tech company which was primarily thought of a search-engine company. Yahoo News reports that Google has ventured into print ads (or offline ads as they are called there) by buying pages at PCMagazine and Maximum PC. More interesting is the website adsbygoogle.com which has these images, but the main page is not functional. "
I was really becoming concerned that Google may have gone into bankruptcy... without the unending stream of daily Google articles to reassure me of the companies present, future, and hypothetical activities.
Yahoo News is reporting on something for Google, basically giving them free advertisement for their new service. Am I missing something.
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[quote]More interesting is the website adsbygoogle.com which has these images, but the main page is not functional.[/quote] I don't see any images... anyone has a mirror?
Now if they could only figure out a way to syndicate farts. Then they'd have something...
Is the main idea, and it is done by Google having a pool of advertisers ready to put in ads, and Google gets a "discounted rate" because they are always giving out ads consistently and easily. Very interesting, reminds me of the Costco (or Sam's Club) of advertising.
Is everything on Slashdot lately just the stuff that was on Reuters in the morning? I read this hours ago. Yar! I've half a mind to demand that stories copied from big news sites not be accepted, as they are already obvious at other news outlets.
Why are the article and summary hyping this "move" up so much? Haven't traditional print-publishing companies been doing this for ages? All Google is doing is buying space in a magazine, and re-selling the ad space, if I am not mistaken.
Any company that can make people like us excited about what they do and what they have in the pipeline is going to be in the spotlight time and time again. What else do you expect from those who thrive on tech news and new techs.
This page dated in 2003 shows that Google has been planning this for quite awhile. I wonder what took them so long?
They've become part of the evil mind-manipulating corporate advertising conspiracy! Bastards! Only evil masterminds would think to add "don't be evil" to their mission statement, 'cause its obviously a phoney claim!
I hope I'm being funny, because I'm not being entirely sarcastic!
Btw.: I found the very first honest privacy statement I've seen; it's hilarious (mailinator.com):
It's not that if Google farts, it makes headlines,
You must be new here.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Your asking something that can be looked up on Google.com!?!?
Geez, apparently these ads aren't very effective...
You'll probably think that I am a nut, but I think that Google ads are important for a democratic system. Here's why.
In the traditional media world (newspapers and TV), content producers are beholden to advertisers. They don't want to say anything that will offend their sponsors for fear of losing revenue.
Google (online) ads correct the problem. By truly separating producer and advertiser, keeping each fairly anonymous to the other, content producers are not required to pander to advertisers -- it's difficult for advertisers to boycott the web pages on which their ads happen to appear. Content producers can create content as they wish and express the ideas that they wish without fear of retaliation.
It's too bad a similar system can never be created in the offline (dead-tree) world that Google is now examining.
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
$4B in new stocks... ~$2.5B in print advertising... Yeah, The Onion seems to have it right.
Note to editors: check dates before filling in the dept.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Google is smart enough to know that there are people out there that don't live and die by the internet. If they see ads for Google, they're more likely to go to a google site when they first encounter the internet. Its like AOL is such a brand name, that many first time internet users naturally just type "AOL" into their browser. Sure, those of us that use the internet all the time won't give a Google ad a second look (except to notice that you don't normally see Google print ads), but for newbs, your grandma that just got her first Linspire PC, etc., knowing where to start is great... and knowing you can start with Google is a great place to start...
PDA & Smartphone Optimized Sites
Replacing my laptop with a Treo
More interesting is the website adsbygoogle.com which has these images, but the main page is not functional.
So let's jump to the funcional links:
http://www.adsbygoogle.com/pcmag/
http://www.adsbygoogle.com/maxpc/
http://www.adsbygoogle.com/pcmag/2005-09-20/
It's just the same way people think of TV and radio stations as entertainment companies, rather than using the programming to gain advertising dollars.
I wonder if this has anythign to do with Google Purge?
Here's how it can work to Google's advantage:
1) Google buys up a whole bunch of bulk, untargetted adspace. Since they're buying in bulk, they get a nice discount. Since its untargetted, it's also cheaper
2) Google then sorts all their bulk stuff by catagory/demographic. "Okay, we have X pages of 18-24 year old sports car drivers, X pages of 14 year old makeup girls, X pages of 65+ dental salve, etc...". Chances are, because of GoogleAds, they already have a good chunk of the market research done as to what demo fits where.
3) Now there are the companies who want to advertise. Normally, these companies pay big bucks to market researchers, who in turn tell the companies "This demographic likes your product, and this is where you should advertise it, because that advert space targets your demographic".
4) Google approaches these companies, and says "Hey, company Y. We know your demo is this (because of GoogleAds), and we have X pages worth of advertising that targets your demo (and we know that because of GoogleAds). If you want to buy some adpsace, let us know"
5) Now, Google can sell small chunks of advertising to those companies at a good price, because Google bought untargetted ads in bulk. Those companies in turn save a pretty penny, because they don't have to pay market researches to tell them WHERE to advertise. Also, they don't have to pay the adspace people directly. They save money there because they wouldn't have bought in bulk (more expensive), and would have bought targetted adspace (more expensive).
So, Google buys up ads cheap, and sells them for a reasonable price to companies, who in turn save money buy not having to pay both marketting and ad firms.
Profit? {shrug} I guess Google's stocks will tell.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Sounds like a decent enough business, but it's awfully hard work compared to the licence to print money that is Google Ads. The online advertisers and the publishers do all the hard work optimising ad positioning, wording, demographics, keywords, etc. Google sit back and take a nice percentage
Homme petit d'homme petit, s'attend, n'avale
Google wants to learn how to track information and influence. They have to constantly change their plan to do this. They released Gmail by invitation so they could map the connections on the internet in 3 degrees of Kevin Bacon style. Once they figure out how we communicate they can patch that up with how we click ads then how we read ads and compare that to their search data to figure out how to maximize the efficiency of the information control and influence. They can then start printing books with print ads in them. They are a sociologists dream.
The only problem is that these companies already exist. They're called media buyers, or ad agencies. If Google is going the agency route then they might do well because agencies are (to some extent) known for no results and a high cost. If Google is bringing this to the populace, then that's not a bad idea.
:)
As an aside, it would be interesting if Google took the AdWords approach to advertising in print magazines and let companies try to outbid each other for spots in different magazines. To take it a step further, imagine if when the magazine is printed, they bind in an ad by Google that is taken to their printers by Google. So Google buys ad space in the middle of the magazine (in the centerfold). Let's say Google does this with Harpsichord! Harpsichord! Harpsichord!, the quarterly for Baroque music enthusiasts. They usually print 50,000 issues. Google partners with them and Google will say, "Just put our centerfold in your magazine, it will be 4 pages of ads."
Well, now imagine that Google sells this ad space not only size-wise in the page (say, by quarters of a page), but also by chunks (of 10,000). So if you really wanted to advertise in H!H!H! you now have the option of advertising only to 10,000 of those readers, at a reduced cost.
Let's take this a step further and look at a real example. Say you're a small custom amp manufacturer, and you want to advertise in Guitar World. Take a look at their rate card. If you want to advertise a one-page ad in their magazine, it's going to cost you $11,000 for a single one-page color ad. If you only wanted to spend $2000 you're out of luck.
But lo and behold, here's Google, who buys 48 pages of ads from Guitar World for $318,000 (the centerfold is 4 pages front and back, so it's 48 x $6625 = $318,000). Now let's say Guitar World prints 50,000 issues per month. Google has bought the centerfold for the magazine and is now letting YOU advertise in it. But Google takes it a bit further. They deliver the pre-printed centerfolds to Guitar World, so now they can put whatever they want on the centerfolds, and have them be as different as they want. Now they come to you and say, "Hey Small Local Custom Amp Manufacturer, how would you like to advertise in Guitar World with a full page ad? I know you don't have $11,000, but what if told you you could spend $0.30 per full page ad in Guitar World, per magazine?" And you think to yourself, you know - that's not a bad idea. I can spend $750 and have 3,000 people see my big, full-page ad... in Guitar World! And you sign up.
Well, you have 2,500 people see your ad in Guitar World and believe you're a huge big-shot company. Meanwhile, Google spent $318,000 on buying these ads and they get 120 companies just like yours signed up for the first issue, showing their big ads concentrated on a small slice of readers. Google's revenue after one year is $1,080,000. Now imagine this being done in hundreds of magazines, and Google packages this so that your ads can get spread across readers in many different kinds of music magazines. Maybe Rolling Stone, and Spin, and a bunch of others.
In that way, it ties in very nicely with Ad Words. And it can tie in further if Google goes for a cost-per-call and each of these ads has a custom 800 number where you get charged $X if someone calls. (This is already being done by some of the CPC companies, I believe).
Hell, if they're not going to do it, I just might.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.