Since last June, Google has been piloting a test with advertisers in private beta to put regular 30-second video commercials on TV in an automated fashion through AdWords. Today, Google is opening that program up to all advertisers and even offering a $2,000 promotional credit towards creating a professional TV commercial.
I love how Google fails to mention anywhere in the announcement that these ads will only appear on the Dish satellite TV network, the only TV service that will allow Google to put its tracking software on its set-top boxes. The cable companies don’t want Google touching their set-top boxes, which is why they are collectively funding their own competing Project Canoe to the tune of $150 million.
Meanwhile, advertisers can already create and buy cheap TV ads across practically any cable network or local TV station through startup Spot Runner. Creating TV ads on Spot Runner is much cheaper, sometimes costing only a few hundred dollars. Google still has a lot of catching up to do in this arena, not just in reaching more TV homes but in better ad targeting. As Spot Runner CEO Nick Grouf told me about a month ago:
Google is not selling targeted ads now on TV. It is selling national ads through the smallest company in the satellite space. We expect them to become more aggressive, but have not seen it yet.
Give them time, Nick. They’ll get there.
I think may be late but Google will catch up in this field too for advertising and the competition will suffer than. Google have a huge base of services and backups so this will sure help them.
Hey, i am looking at my gooogle adwords dashboard. there is no option to setup tv ads. is it a seperate platform from regular adwords platform?
Should be the same as your normal adwords account.
Checkout the “campaign summary” page, scroll down and you should see “TV Campaigns.”
not a fan of google ads on my tv lol
PING [ Since last June, Google has been piloting a test with advertisers in private beta to put regular 30-second video commercials on TV. ]
Google will continue to grow and monetize youtube and other properties but TV buys will not obtain much penetration. If you want to use the power of TV advertising, interactive video and or broadcast media, I would suggest you stick to investing in marketing programs that remain in internet media. check out an award winning firm called realviewtv.com. I recommend that you email greg, a new media consultant at gsmith@realviewtv.com ~ Vanessa
Guess who is developing the ad blocker.
No good for advertising creativity, but they will definitively rule the ad business if they achieve that
Erick. I have to agree with you. Google’s DISH deal is likely already a Restraint of Trade issue because it limits agencies certain access to the small DISH satellite system. Google is going directly head to head with dotcom award-winning custom ad agency CheapTVSpots now that Spot Runner is out of the running (according to CNN Money – Video Ads Start-Up “Spot Runner” Burns Out). Spotzer is in the same boat as Spot Runner, MixPo and SpotMixer with look-alike template ads which are a Web 2.0 fad that small business got tired of. Turn Here seems like more of a vanity ad maker, like a vanity press for books – but for pizza parlors. How will it all turn out? Here’s a guess: Lots of red ink and a lot of bloggers with egg on their face for having hyped the next big…bubble.