Google Radio Ads Experiencing Early Troubles

An anonymous reader writes "Google's tech-heavy solution to advertising has worked wonders on the internet, and made it a friend to bloggers everywhere. The low-tech nature of traditional radio, though, has caused some conflicts with Google's radio ad service. The impersonal nature of online ads are very different than the one-on-one personalized service that radio advertising normally uses. While Google ads are running on some 700 radio stations, that's a very small part of the market. They are committed to improving, but onlookers think it will take a change in pitch. 'Whether Google can succeed in radio "is questionable, because you do need relationships with radio stations to give you something of value. If you don't have radio-focused personnel...you'll get the low-hanging fruit but may not be able to grow the market," said Maribeth Papuga, senior vice president and director of radio buying for Media Vest, a part of ad firm Publicis Groupe. "Their challenge is going to be having a broad enough list of markets and stations to make it a viable enough player on a national scale."'"

Comments

Re:i think...

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"The impersonal nature of online ads are very different than the one-on-one personalized service that radio advertising normally uses."

Don't you have that backwards?

IANAP, but I don't think so.

With online ads, you see static text that says something. You read it silently and interpret it's logical meaning. 5 seconds and you're done.

With radio ads, you are listening to a person's voice for 30 seconds to a minute. You hear the inflections and emotional state of the voice. Years of conversing with people have taught you to pick up subtle hints of honesty, deceit, confidence, etc. In addition to hearing what is verbally said and deducing it's practical meaning, you are consciously and subconsciously analyzing the voice and it's message.

Yeah, that might be over the top a bit, but I think it has merit. Online vs radio ads are like 1-D compared to 2-D. Going from radio to television is like going to 3-D. Now you not only have voice, but images as well. Think about how things changed with the Nixon/Kennedy debates that were televised for the first time after being on the radio for years.