Google Wants To Create Promotions That Aren't Ads For Its Voice-Controlled Assistant (businessinsider.in)

Earlier this month, some Google Home users noticed what appeared to be audio ads for Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" movie. After some intense backlash, the company released a statement claiming that the ad was not an ad, but that it was simply "timely content" that Disney didn't pay for. Google's UK director of agencies, Matt Bush, has since spoken out about the company's plans with advertising via the voice-controlled Assistant. Business Insider reports: Bush explained Google isn't looking to offer brand integrations in voice for the time being, since it didn't have enough data to come up with an ad product that adds value for consumers. "We want businesses to have a phenomenal mobile experience and then building on that have a phenomenal voice experience," Bush told Business Insider at Advertising Week Europe. "That might not be, in the early instances, anything that has to do with commercials at all. It might just be something something that adds value to the consumer without needing to be commercialized." Bush explained that the consumer experience with voice is very different from that of text search because the use cases for voice navigation differ depending on the device the function is used on and the context the user finds themselves in. "We don't want to start putting in commercial opportunities that we think users don't want to interact with," Bush said "We don't want anything to come in-between the user and their access to the information they're actually looking for. If a brand can add value in that space, fantastic." Bush cited mobile search ads as successful executions of using context and personal user insights, but voice promotions are unlikely to take the same form. "It's unlikely to be what you see from search as it currently stands, where you might have three or four ads as the top results of a search," he said.

Comments

To ad or not to ad

[peragrin]

An Ad by any other name is still an Ad.

So Google wants to add paid audio clips that don't sound like Ads but are descriptions of timely partner products?

So Google is trying to tech word of mouth advertising to it's home device and then charge the maker of those products for those ads?

Re:To ad or not to ad

[Mitreya]

So Google wants to add paid audio clips that don't sound like Ads but are descriptions of timely partner products?

Yeah, good one: "That might not be, in the early instances, anything that has to do with commercials at all. It might just be something something that adds value to the consumer without needing to be commercialized."

What if we, the customers (not consumers!) do not want to have value-added shoved down our throats? Whose value is it, anyway?
Plus note the "in early instances". So they will run this program for a few months, before it is just regular paid ads?

Re:To ad or not to ad

[stephanruby]

So Google wants to add paid audio clips that don't sound like Ads but are descriptions of timely partner products?

Yes, basically.

Their main argument is that no one actually paid for that ad. But most likely, it was just an A/B test designed to see how far they could push the line (without receiving backlash for it) and then measure its success rate so that they could convince Disney (or similar big brands) to buy more ads like it.

It's a bit like a cook trying to boil a frog by starting to turn on the heat really slowly, but then doing it too quickly and so the frog freaks out. And now the cook is doing everything it can to reassure the frog that the heat was for its own good and that it should just think of the water pot as its own personal relaxing jacuzzi.

This is why Alexa Google Home

[kimgkimg]

Google can't make direct revenue from the Home. Amazon's Alexa is there to support consumption of products and media from Amazon (and various partners I suppose.)

Absolute 100% Horse Manure

[mkoenecke]

Good grief, what a load of horse manure. The whole POINT of something like Google Home is to analyze and profit from one's day to day interaction with the Web. I really do like and use Google's services, especially with respect to synchronizing data among my various devices: BUT it is quite true that we, its users, *are* the product. I have a very nice Google Home Christmas present which has been sitting in its box since December, and the more I think about it, the less inclined I am to activate it. Google may very well be living up to its credo, "Don't Be Evil," but there is a whole galaxy of things third parties can do in their own best interest (and not in yours) that, while not technically "evil," are not necessarily in *your* best interest. Don't be paranoid, but don't be a fool either.

How nice.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

And I want a supply of square circles. Those should be about as easy to come by as 'promotions that are not ads'.

amazon to follow

[kiviQr]

Can't wait for Amazon's delivery b/c Alexa overheard that we are out of beer...

They are still ads

[hawguy]

"We don't want to start putting in commercial opportunities that we think users don't want to interact with,"

You know what people call "commercial opportunities that users do want to interact with"? They call them ads.

And I have no problem with ads like this in the proper context "Alexa, I need toilet paper." "Ok, you can buy the same brand you bought the last time, but Charmin is on sale today and is $2.37 less expensive"

That's the kind of ad I'm happy to have, but I don't want to hear "Today's weather is sunny and 63 degrees. Today is clean-your-butt day and we have Charmin on sale!"

Re:They are still ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunno about you, but in my house every day is clean-your-butt day.

Easy solution

[nightfire-unique]

Make the new "not ads" opt-in. If users want them, they can flip a switch.

If they're not purely for Google profit, they should have no problem with this approach.

Typical marketspeak bullshit

[taustin]

"We don't want to start putting in commercial opportunities that we think users don't want to interact with,"

If that were true, you wouldn't be talking about ads at all. Because your users don't want any ads in the product they bought.

Re:Typical marketspeak bullshit

[Kiuas]

If that were true, you wouldn't be talking about ads at all. Because your users don't want any ads in the product they bought

But they were not speaking about whether or not users want ads or not. The phrasing used was "putting in commercial opportunities that we think users don't want to interact with." (emphasis mine).

People generally do not like ads, but that does not mean they do not have an effect on them when exposed to ads. What ad firms like google are interested in is the likelihood of you being affected by an ad, they do not care whether or not the customer wants the ad or not. If I was given a choice by Steam for example I'd disable the desktop ads that it pushes once a day or so when starting Steam. However at the same time I've still bought a game once or twice from these ads if the discount is good enough. Same goes for telemarketing and spam: if you poll people, nearly 100 % of them would tell you they'd want to wipe these forms of advertising from the face of the planet, however since these are still effective they will keep getting used.

There's been a lot of research put into how ads effect people over the decades and the marketing industry has long since realized that subtlety is the key. Most consumers dislike direct ads so product placement and sponsored content is the way advertisers are heading into in this day and age where even relatively non-tech savy people are capable of installing ad-block. Moreover, the individual consumer is not the paying customer for Google, the advertisers are. So in fact, the statement is properly decoded from business-speak as: "We don't want to offer non-effective means of advertising to our customers".

In essence this means that what Google wants to avoid is 'old school' advertising where the user googles something like 'cheap laptops' and then starts to get spammed with different kinds of ads for laptops because while those work for some people, they're not nearly as effective as waiting for the user to pick a search result for a laptop, and then intervening with something like. "We've noticed you're interested in model X from manufacturer Y, here are listings for products with equivalent specs at lower prices:"

Most users will not feel this is an ad and are in fact likely to interact with such functionality because it offers them some value. However at the same time this is something that Google can easily sell to its existing customers (advertisers) because it fits in nicely with the keyword model and can be easily varied.

Fuck off, Google

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"the company released a statement claiming that the ad was not an ad, but that it was simply "timely content" that Disney didn't pay for."

It's an ad, and I don't give a fuck what kind of alternative hand-waving horseshit they call it. Shut the fuck up unless I summon you or unless there's a genuine emergency you need to warn me about. And no, a sale on pickles or Pampers or $PRODUCT is not an "emergency". No, no, fuck NO.

This right here is enough to convince me to never, EVER try Google Assistant or whatever the fuck it's called.

Re:Fuck off, Google

[houghi]

unless there's a genuine emergency

No, not even that. Not even if it would save the life of me and my puppy. I do not need a nanny. If I die, so be it.
Do not open the door a little bit. Keep it firmly shut.

Re:This is why Alexa Google Home

[sexconker]

For the confused: OP likely had a > in the title, and it should have been "This is why Alexa > Google Home".

Re:This is why Alexa Google Home

[110010001000]

Bullshit. Google can make direct revenue from pushing ads on Home. That is what they are doing, no matter what the lying exec says.

Re:This is why Alexa Google Home

[kimgkimg]

Yeah, that's exactly what happened, and there was no way to re-edit the posting or do a delete and re-add.

Do you mean Bill?

[s.petry]

What the meaning of "is" is?

If not, citation is necessary.

While we're at it

[JanneM]

Can I get some food that gives me lots of energy and no calories? perhaps you could sell it using your not-ad promotions?

FUCK Newspeak

[houghi]

Uber is a taxi company. Hurting people is not a prank. Alternate truth is lies. And these are ads.

I realy would like to walk up to them and put my knee with force into their balls and place my fist on their face several times with force and place my boot in their liver when they are on the ground.
It is not an assault, it is a valuable life lesson. Why won't they see the difference?

So.... advertisements, correct?

[QuietLagoon]

"We don't want anything to come in-between the user and their access to the information they're actually looking for. If a brand can add value in that space, fantastic."

That sounds an awful lot like advertising to me. Let me phrase it differently, the absolute last thing I want out of google home is for some hipster working deep inside google to be able to say, "hey, this is cool, let's spam google home users with it." As of now, Google Home is a non-starter in my household.

Please, Amazon, don't let Alexa do this to us

[kriston]

Please, Amazon, don't let Alexa do this to us. You're our only hope.

Re:F-ck off, Google

[kriston]

Yeah, it wasn't a paid advertisement. It was an experiment to gauge how users would react to advertisements like this.

Nice way to spin it.

Don't be evil. Most of the time.

Would you like some toast?

[bandy]

"Would you like some toast? Some nice hot crisp brown buttered toast. No? How about a muffin then? Nothing? You know the last time you had toast. 18 days ago, 11.36, Tuesday 3rd, two rounds. I mean, what's the point in buying a toaster with artificial intelligence if you don't like toast. I mean, this is my job. This is cruel, just cruel." I was surprised when I heard that they pushed an advertisement out, and shocked when they tried to defend it. Now they're saying it's not an ad because they didn't get money (note the weaseling) for it? That's Don Draper-esque level hubris.