Google to Transform Television Advertising?

Brad Zink writes "According to Robert X. Cringely, Google is poised to enter into the world of television advertising. This would usher in a new era for the venerable medium, creating a tidal wave of revenue for the networks, while solidifying Google's position in the advertising industry. Cringely develops this prediction based on his belief that Google is developing a network of data centers to be placed around the globe, which would be used to serve television commercials in addition to its current online content."

Comments

Invasion of privacy rights?

[digitaldc]

".... knowing that Google will still be the only game in town for the crux of the whole thing: the ability to show every viewer the specific ads that companies will pay the most to show him at that specific moment. What Google wants to do with these trailers is SERVE EVERY TV COMMERCIAL ON THE PLANET because only they will be able to do it efficiently. Only they will have the database that converts those IP addresses into sales leads, only they will have the servers and disk space close enough to the viewers to feed the ads. Only Google will have the chops to run a constant, real-time auction for the next ad every consumer is about to see, and then serve that ad at the moment the program goes to commercial."

So you really want that Viagra/Valtrex/Cialis/Levitra ad to always be showing up when your new girlfriend is watching TV with you?
I would think not.

But...

[codeTurtle]

This could be an interesting idea, but Google's advertising model doesn't translate so well to television. How would you go about compartmentalising viewers into groups, and serving the relevant ad? Sure, you could go on household viewing stats, but that might require extra hardware to get to; and I'm sure some people would object.

Also, it can't be as simple as the article suggests - when you have someone going to Google.com, you can be fairly sure there is one person (usually) behind the monitor. Many many more in front of the TV. How do you weight your targeting?

I just can't see how this would practically work.

Busted...

[dbucowboy]

This could be bad news for married people who are secretly searching the web for a "special friend". Opps!

Weather Channel is already doing this

[TMarvelous]

In the last two years the Weather Channel has been making a big push in this direction. They have been a technological innovator in the cable world especially in the way they push the local forecast to every individual head end that carries TWC. Leveraging that technology they have begun regional targeting and weather specific targeting.

An example of this is a tire company. On any other network when they buy national time one commercial for one tire is aired. With regional targeting rain tires can been served to the northeast and good weather tires to the south - in the same :30 seconds two spots run simultaneously in different parts of the country. Take that a step further and you really begin to see the value in the premium price TWC gets for these spots.

TWC links it's ad serving to it's local forecasts at each head end. If it's raining in your county you'll see a rain tire commercial, while your buddy up north on another cable system where it's snowing will see a spot for snow tires. An hour later when the snow turns to rain he's see a spot for rain tires.

While conceptually the idea of Google leveraging these trailers is conceivable Cringely's prediction is flawed. Google will not be able to sell targeting to the networks. National network commercials are still carried over the air. Cable operators simply retransmit them. The minute or two of local time is sold by the local affiliate, also over the air and then retransmitted. Neither the nets nor the affiliates would let a cable operator insert commercials over the ones they've sold and no technology exists to legally insert them over the air interrupting the original signal. There may be some room in the cable only universe for cable MSO's to sell national advertisers more targeted spots in the 2 minutes an hour then get but the idea of Joe's Restaurant down the block spending money on production of a TV ad and then paying extra to target me seems a little far fetched.

I think the prediction in today's NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/technology/06onl ine.html makes more sense. Downloads an convergence of the TV and PC are where it's going to be at.

Or we could just wait and see what the announcement is. What is the point of specualting anyway besides driving traffic to /. everyday? :)