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. "

Comments

From the summary...

[BlackCobra43]

It's not that if Google farts, it makes headlines,

You must be new here.

Google Ads are good for democracy

[ThatGeek]

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.

Re:re-selling ad space?

[halcyon1234]

I think the business model goes slightly beyond just buying and selling ad space.

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.