Different markets have different needs for marketing products or services. We all know that much. But that doesn’t take away the weirdness of a company like Google advertising its core product (online search) by using ink that was printed on paper.
Guilty of this hideous crime (I kid, I kid) is Google India, who apparently ordered some targeted quarter-page advertisements to appear in a variety of city supplements of The Times Of India, the leading English-language daily newspaper in the country.
According to PluGGd.in – who we can also credit for taking the picture of the ad – this isn’t exactly the first time Google India has advertised services in dead tree form. They apparently also ran a print campaign to promote the company’s SMS search service back in November 2008.
But this could well be the first time the Internet behemoth feels the need to pimp its search service in print. Or is it?
Have you ever heard about other countries where Google advertises its search engine in printed publications? Let us know in comments.
It is a interesting move though because the online search market of India according to a MR can best be reached trough this kind of print ads.
As a resident of India, I can say Print Media is still the popular here to advertise products. Online Advertising is also taking pace but most of them only pays little for their online campaign compared to print advertising.
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
The truth is, Google fears M$ in India.
With ridiculously irrelevant Google search results these days, Bing has a definite an edge over Google.
In our IT firm, we have all changed to Bing and Binging is the new term for here. Sometimes we just say, “Did you bing?”
Are u serious? Bing is not even close to what Google does!
Unless ofcourse ur firm is called Microsoft I dont understand why anybody would make such a radical change to Bing, when Bing has not even estabilished it’s credibility!
Try comparing search results, you’ll see what I mean.
hee hee… you work for MS don’t you
I frankly can’t see any reason to use bing.
I need the details of 4th July Times of India, regarding the news of HIV students expeld from the schools in USA.
Very interesting indeed, it’s amazing to see how Google’s marketing works, it’s inspiring to me.
Lot of us still read news papers? Actually I don’t get it.
Yes, Newspaper is still popular in India. Much to the surprise of the world, the newspaper sales is growing
What’s so wrong with ads on paper… I like them more than online ads… And Newspaper is reused in interesting ways here in India… Like when you go for shopping you get fruits covered in newspaper… We have even bags made out of newspaper here!
Newspaper and TV is the mainstream media here… Folks here have some aversion towards tech stuf… The irony is that we’ve got 3G here!
Its not that folks are averse to technology. The broadband speeds in India suck and hence you are unable to experience the Internet as one does in the West.
It’s not surprising because newspapers are still prevalent in India. Even though India’s online penetration is increasing, there’s a very high percentage of crowd who still prefers to consume news via the old medium.
A lot of folks who spend money on ads still are not online. The Indian rural market is still unexplored. People also have a better habit of reading newspapers than checking their email — even in a corporate environment. Even in terms of social media Orkut still has the largest market share compared to Facebook and MySpace was just a blip on most people’s radar.
In China, you can see google ads in sub way trains.
Aah!! This sounds more interesting!!!
yeah, coz it’s not the most popular in the market there.
What’s wrong! we still read papers here Mr. Wauters from faraway land!
n yep! I agree with Robert, we recycle them in many interesting ways!
India is mostly internet illiterate. Most of my pretty educated friends think that the internet is only Yahoo and Google, and may be a few porn sites. This ad isn’t a very good approach..most people don’t even know the exact “internet definition” of search.
Btw, this ad appeared last week so its a few days old
“India is mostly internet illiterate.”
And that’s why it makes sense to use print ads doesn’t it? Oh and I didn’t know that pretty and porn go together
Dude.. you say indians dont know internet, even americans don’t know basic things like difference between browser and a search engine. you shut up ur mouth!
http://www.yout...h?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ
some one should do an interview in downtown / village in India. I am sure we will get more people who know internet explorer and Firefox than most of Americans.
Its not just Americans, Almost all of the world doesnt know what a Browser or anything similar is…
India’s Technology is expanding so quick i remember last time when i went on holiday to india (Bangalore) I have to say it is developing dam fast…
I think india’s current generation are more into Web And Techonlogy stuff?
I got a letter, yes a LETTER from them in the post the other day with a EUR50 money-off voucher for AdWords. I had a good chuckle at that I can tell you.
In India, print readership is increasing strongly, because new rural markets are now opening up to them. Times of India is the “world’s largest circulated English daily” and India’s total reader-base is close to 100 million(source:wiki)
I guess its easy for you guys to get caught in the US trend of “print is dying”. But it isn’t a global/general rule:)
I had a letter from Google last week. I don’t really get the point of this article. When are you Americans ever going to *get* irony!?
Indians yes, they have an aversion to anything new and disrupting – and rightly so. Newspapers though reach to almost every Indian. Against a common notion, most people in India are literate – http://en.wikip...teracy_in_India.
Why not? Their potential customers and users do read newspapers so that’s where to target them.
I was also surprised to see that google actually (paper) advertises in France too, I saw a print ad for Google AdWords in a free train traveller magazine while in a high speed train between paris and Lyon.
Although I have access web, subscrie to news feeds online, use social networking, I still have a craze for the daily news paper. Its a must for me! You may call it an old habit, but I enjoy that.
For ads, I seldom notice an ad while surfinf the net. Many a times it annoys me and sometimes I am scared to hover over it! But a quarter page ad in print media, I rarely miss that !!
I believe the move by Google is intelligent.. that should pay off.
Well i stay in India and i have a pretty Good idea about Global thinking also. And in my opinion Print has its own beauty and charm which web can never overcome. That’s the reason of thousands of Newspaper and magazines getting published everyday and still surviving.
Other thing print advertising is surely more effective because >
On web, you get paid when user see the ad or clicks… In print, user pays the money to see the print as he has bought those 20 page paper or mag.
So in print he definitely takes interest to read each and every bit of it.
+1 gotta agree Nitin
Its definitely true that print medium is very much alive and kicking in India. Can’t strat my day without reading it with a hot cup of tea
I don’t understand why this is wierd. Other search engines advertise on TV and we don’t think twice.
It is weird for Google to promote its search engine in ads, though.
Well they surely did. Google China did OOH advertising in the subway compartment as we observed at least in Beijing and Guangzhou.
They have also used print ads in Russia about a year ago or so.
Oh hello Mr. Brin
They do in Europe, mostly advertising coupons offers in specialised magasines for people to open a new account.
Well..
this is surely not the first time some web giant has gone for print campaign in India, while we talk about Google, it might seem a little weird but it is worth advertising in a Print daily in India. If, we go through the latest print media circulation details, India is the lone country in the World in which, the print media circulations are actually going up thats too not some odd pc but really up, which very well justifies this move.
Google India has some really good plans to tap this growing online market in India of which almost 70 pc is in vernacular languages.
Let me give you guys an example for the recent Vernacular language Recipe competition organised by Knol ( Google’s failed wiki model) in India, this move was taken to make Indians aware of the various Indic language initiatives taken by Google India but too my utter surprise they could find some odd 500 posts for such a large online competition,
the reason: there was no print media publicity, if there was any publicity then that was too little, so none of my fellow Indians got to know about it and the result was a total failure. Google India publicised about this competition through odd Google ads and that too very rare. So it is very wise to advertise in India in a print media publication like Times of India. You will surely get readers.
In India Google had ads in many OOH services and also on some flyovers. Even on some bi
I Meant even on some billboards near there campus
As an Indian myself and living overseas for quite some time I can see the disconnect and the need for Google to do this or for that matter even MSN or Yahoo. You are dealing with an extremely technologically intellectual demographic here, but when it comes to finding services/products people still rely on print and word of mouth. So much so, that even the concept of advertising online is foreign to them. A personal example would be, I deal with developers in India all the time and the very mention that we spend £ or $ 1,2, or 3 on A CLICK shocks them. To the western society the value of A CLICK is important, not to that demographics – not yet.
Today you go to Google in any wester country and find a product/service you are looking for and you will get 1000s of results. Do the same in India and you will get information but wont be able to find where or from who to buy the product/service.
Hence, this kind of a marketing campaign by Google makes sense because it is trying to build awareness – for both the consumers and for the advertisers.
The biggest problem is trust. For instance, I looked up restaurants on a popular local search site in New Delhi, and found one to my liking close to my place. There was no number listed, so I decided to take a shot and drive down there. Turned out that the restaurant had been closed for the past 2 years, and this new local search engine still listed it. Once I started looking into it more, at least 20% of their listings were incorrect.
The title of this article should really be:
Google Places Ads On Indian Toilet Paper
The most common use of a newspaper in India is not reading but rather wiping.
So why do they print them then?
The print ink actually has excellent absorbing qualities for wiping purposes. That would be the primary purpose of printing. The secondary purpose: reading.
Since you know so much about India and it’s news papers, while you were in India, you must have tried it and written about it here.
Which province did you visit?
I’m not trying to be racist. But in all honesty, I have lived in India; and the VAST majority of people there are the most backward, illiterate, and primitive people. We have a different perception of Indians here in the US because only the best and the brightest of Indians make it to U.S. soil However, make not mistake, these US-Indians are not representative of the Indians in the middle of the bell curve in India. Therefore, advertising a search engine to people who don’t even know which way to face when sitting on a toilet is “probably” an ineffective way to spend money.
Make no mistake, David Ord is not representative of the Americans in the middle of the bell curve in America… He deserves to be wiped on the face with the newspaper that was used as toilet paper… But the ink won’t absorb morons I guess…
Dear Robin Wauters, the above comments by David is very Racist, I request you to take down his comments as it not in the best interest of humanity neither to the topic!
yes. David Ord is a moron.. may be he was kicked out of his job because there are super smart indians to take all the jobs.
Err… if you’ve lived in India you would know that most Indians do not really use paper … water is preferred for ablutions
And those who CAN read the Times of India – an ENGLISH newspaper (the largest circulated eng paper in the world) definitely aren’t in the middle of the demographic bell curve
Sorry, not demographic, I meant … the socio-economic bell curve.
If you can read English, you’re probably among the approx 5% of elite Indians and in all probability you use google
And please don’t delete his comment … the irony in calling others primitive is just too rich
@Abhi,
I think there is a logical error in your statement. I said that the most frequent use of the Times of India is the use of old newspaper for toilet paper. This statement in no way contradicts the fact that most Indians use water for ablutions. Of course most Indians use water, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the most popular use of newspaper in India is not for reading but for toilet paper, wrapping fish, starting fires… table cloth, construction tarps, etc.
The second logical error you made: you stated that the upper echelon of Indians– the top 5% who can read English in all probability use Google. OK, then why advertise if they already use Google? I thought the point was to hit the masses who handle these newspapers? If that’s the case, then please be advised that the majority of people who handle the Times of India do not read them. The majority of Indians who handle these papers are, for lack of a more accurate term, “primitive.”
But all of this talk about toilet paper is silly. Let us not overlook the big picture. Looking at the big picture, one must ask: how relevant is advertising in such a primitive country? How much business can Google Shopping/India generate when the VAST majority of Indians don’t use Visa/Mastercard, and when the VAST majority of small businesses don’t even use pen & paper, much less a keyboard, much less a computer, much less the internet, much less Google, much less a credit card processing account. Will Google, or technology become relevant one day to the VAST majority of Indians in the middle of the Indian bell curve? Maybe, anything is possible. However, given the fact that they have so far to go, the answer, unfortunately, is yes, possible, however, EXTREMELY improbable. Come on folks, we are talking about a country in which a BILLION of its inhabitants are, for all intents and purposes, illiterate. So you have managed to build a handful of nice 5-Star hotels (probably with Direct Foreign Investment) in your biggest cities, as “AB” so proudly alludes. However, mobilizing and teaching a billion people to read is probably a bit more onerous than building a 5-Star hotel.
1. define VAST?
2. How long have you stayed here? In what capacity?
3. Which cities / states have you visited?
4. How much do you know about India, its past, present and current financial and economic state , its fiscal policies etc?
5. How much do you know India culturally? Have you explored out of your 5 star accomodation
6. If you have any clue about the above answers, let me tell you one thing, we dont wipe, we wash.
Its just a matter of time, when we take over. Very soon.
David, how do I put this without being rude. You are a complete moron.
Your first point is logically incoherent and not based on any facts whatsoever. In any case, ALL newspapers everywhere are used for wrapping fish the next day.
Your second point implies that you don’t understand how advertising works. By your logic Coke and Pepsi should not advertise in the US… because err people in the US already know about them? In the case of this ad, the point was to tell users that google can be used directly for airfare searches as well which many Google users (self included) may not have been aware of.
Who is this fucking idiot David ?
Thinks himself to be genius and writes comments about a country which he hardly knows .
Dude did you ever came out of your town in last 20 years …??
To the contrary my friend. It is easier for me to “know” things about India here in the US than it is for you to know about your own country as you’re sitting inside the borders. The reason is because our media and educational system are up to date and of high quality. Therefore, if you want to know more about your own country, as someone in the US to look it up for you. Remember, they say: “sometimes, it is difficult to see the box while you’re sitting inside the box.”
“VAST majority of people there are the most backward, illiterate, and primitive people.”
Well let’s accept it that VAST people in india are illiterate but in what ways?
Don’t know how to write? or Don’t know how to read? or Don’t know English?
Who don’t know English for then Google create local language version. here you can count people who just don’t know how to read or write in illiterate community. but tell me if vast people illiterate in read then why Times of India is the “world’s largest circulated English daily” and India’s total reader-base is close to 100 million(source:wiki)
If you don’t know the nos check this out http://en.wikip...teracy_in_India where you can find 82 % young Indian in Literacy http://www.unic...statistics.html.
I think International media just need to represent India as a pour and backward or so called third world country. i had a personal experience that i wanna share here. One of International journalist with a European news agency wanna cover some news here n India. I know him personally so he contacted me that he need to shoot something good for the report. when he was in India i shown him good places like gov buildings, collages like IIM, malls, temples, and many things. after all the tour he told me that he wanna see real India. I mean what you mean by that? so he explained real India means slums, Porty, backward areas etc?!?
So slums and backward areas etc is only real India? Good infrastructure or good places cant be the representation of India?
Times of India is the “world’s largest circulated English daily” and India’s total reader-base is close to 100 million
http://en.wikip...dia#cite_note-1
Mr. Aniruddh:
I think your guest realized that you took him to places where only top 1 percent of the Indian population have access.
I think when he said the real India, he meant the places in India where Indians in the middle of the social-economic bell curve live, work, and hang out. Unfortunately, he is correct in assuming that these places are slums.
Even the Indians here at work in corporate America admit that to this day, most of their countrymen do not know or need to know what a computer is. When you are worried about where your next bowl of rice curry will be coming from, you don’t have the luxury /privilege of having to make a decision about whether to use Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
Hi Mr. David, just one request. You are most welcome to visit my home in India. Stay for a week, i would love to be your guide to make you see some good places which will help you get a better and true outlook of a country.
And ya, in India we have over 5000 newspapers published in more than 22 different languages. Do you think the great media heads running them are doing it to provide your so called, “Toilet Papers” ?
Thank you for the kind offer Mr. Nitin. I would love you visit you the next time I am in India. I will contact you privately.
You are most welcome.
you moron David.. you suck!
you don’t know any facts about india.. fuck you
It would have been better for Indian market, if Google ad said that send an SMS to GOOG for airfares and get an SMS back with deals. Instead of PCs and iphones, an average Indian prefers to use SMS on his phone.
Sure, the newspaper is still big thing is india but his ad is a waste of money and marketing strategy.
Here in South Africa Google ran a series of ads together with cell phone manufacturers advertising Google mobile search – I blogged about it back in 2008 if anybody wants to see a photo – http://www.kilp...le-advertising/
Print Media is still the most effective in india to connect with your target audience.
http://bit.ly/fKBQy
Oh yes, Print media is quite prevalent in India, and growing. Google did a really smart thing there by (i think) directly targeting the older generation, because a lot of them are reluctant to learn “internet” and use it primarily to access sites like tickets booking and paying bills directly, and their search expertise is limited. Yes, generalising here, but its quite valid. Plus, newspapers are still the major source of information for a majority of computer savvy people too, and a quarter page ad definitely grabs attention like nothing else. The online equivalent of it in terms of impact would have to be some adware taking over your entire screen for 5 minutes and displaying a red blinking marquee in 36 font size
According to the Second Largest Reader base of TC is in India… http://alexa.co.../techcrunch.com … But how come no one I talk to doesn’t know TC?
Because you assume based on a small sample set.
The last thing that I want to see is customized ads in tomorrow’s copy of my newspaper based on my browsing preferences.
Why was my comment deleted?
There are people on this planet who don’t know what Google is??
There was a world before google and would be there after it too. There was Indian civilization before Romans and after them. It was there before USA and perhaps would be there after it.
Not necessarily, Casual. But looks like there may be people who dont read the article before posting such questions. Look at the ad, it doesnt say “There is a new thing called google”, it says “you can search airfare using google”. Which, a lot of people dont. I have friends who go to kayak or priceline or any such airfare aggregators than go to google. ,
Friends in the US, I meant.
Maybe its because in India you don’t actually sit at home on your computer but they actually have real friends and they don’t really play computer games or console games but they actually go outside of their house and play a sport in real. Now that would be weird for in USA right?
A big brouhaha is made out of a non issue. What if google advertises on paper or on the moon?
Have seen google ads on billboards in US.
A lot of websites uses offline marketing and it is a huge niche.
As our friendly resident TROLL David Ord an authority on all things especially about India seems to hit the nail on the head, we are still running half naked with painted faces so beware paleface.
LOL!
Newspapers are famous for news in India.Some areas are rural in India and remote areas are not connected with Internet & people are not aware with internet due to lack of education & finance So newspaper are easy to buy in INR 2.00 or 3.00.Google is taking advantage of this trend in India.
I’m from India and I use internet for about 5hrs a day on weekdays and about 10-12 hrs on weekends and you know what I spend about 1-2 hr on newspapers daily in both home and work. I cannot start a day without newspapers.
And for statistics India is one of the fastest growing newspaper market in the world and still i guess only 20-30% of the literate population subscribes to newspapers(and among that one is the largest circulated english daily in the world) . It’s all about market availability!!! There is a huge opportunity for newspapers here for quite some time. So it does make sense to advertise on newspapers here. I will definitely look that ad, People like me are what Google targeting.
The World Bank estimates that 456 million Indians (42% of the total Indian population) now live under the global poverty line of $1.25 per day (PPP). This means that a third of the global poor now reside in India. Read more at http://en.wikip...overty_in_India
At first, I thought David Ord was joking when he said there are 1 Billion indians who are illiterate. But based on almost a half billion Indians making less than $1.25 a day, may be it not too far off that there must be hundreds of millions of Indians who are illiterate.
Wow, that’s a lot of poverty. Indians need to focus more on the war on poverty and less on the race in technology. It seems there is a considerable brain drain out of the country probably due to greed. Large numbers of Indians who are smart leave the country to come to England and the US for posh jobs, rather than staying in India to contribute to the growth the economy. Without an adequate pool of human capital, a country as a whole will never escape mass poverty.
All this talk about google and tech seems more and more irrelevant.
Oh man, you are the logic guru. So Poverty=Illiteracy?
So if GM declares Chapter 11 Bankruptcy because they cannot pay off their debts (read became poor) does that mean they lost what they learned and became cavemen?
I’m just implying the obvious and that is there is an inverse correlation between literacy rates and poverty rates. No one here can deny that there is a correlation. Of course there are exceptions, but those are … exceptions, not rule.
In fact, I would venture to say that illiteracy & poverty also inversely correlate with cultural development.
Even the Indians in England and US exhibit some primitive cultural practices that prevents them from assimilating. Indian engineers in corporate settings don’t bath daily, and thus exude strong scents. Indian women employees wear strange outfits to work, totally ignoring cultural and corporate norms. Both men and women speak LOUDLY in Hindi in the presence of their White co-workers. I once knew an Indian lawyer who would take off his shoes and run around the office barefooted all day. He would scramble in a panic dash to find his shoes when a client comes in, but didn’t have the sense to leave them on. I wonder if Indian doctors take off their shoes and walk around the operating room bare-footed during surgery.
Poverty=Illiteracy I dont know about that but I’m agree with Momar, its totally true that all young Indians just wanna leave country because of lots of money in u/s and outside India. in Google how many Indians are working to develop new technologies? for sure you will find many Indians. Not only Google but all giant companies like Yahoo, Microsoft, Sun, Apple or if you take other industries like Pepsi, coca cola, everywhere Indians contributing but at the last its about then. its not about the country.
Student at IIM or IIT or NID do study and getting world class qualification in filed of Management and Technology & Designing. they all think that they spend lots of money by their own pockets so for sure they can run for big Jobs so they can cover their expanses and for that they gonna find good jobs only out side of India. This is the thinking of the students. They think that government not spending money on us. our parents spending money from their pockets but that’s wrong..who building these reputable institutes? who is giving grants? who is spending in education infrastructure? the answer is Government and after the all spending, students going out side of India for posh jobs and money.
so government spending money to train student and to export them in out side of india. According to me IIM and IIT are brand factory to export hub of students.
Lots of my friends are study in abroad. I asked one of my friend that why you’re not staying in India to contribute your knowledge and skills? why you have to go outside India to get job and to do studies? he answered me “whats in India? there is nothing in India. There is no future in India. What my county did for me? nothing then why should i live here?”
My answer is, don’t think that what’s your country did for you but think that what you did for your country.
I can see why they did this. In India people still rate print ads very high.
If you are in print media then you are suppose to be big,good and powerful.
http://www.ekhi...rule-the-world/
looks like the reccession has hit Google’s business growth in the current year & the print ad is clear testimony
I have perused this with interest. And I do find that this chat, which is informative, seems to revolve around two issues: one, newspapers, and two, their use (most posted upon) just because one guy talked about it – using it as toilet paper. Two comments: one, get your facts right. 1 billion people is not correct. That is the whole population, consisting of kids, youngsters, dads, moms, elders, etc. Second, what use is the newspaper after it is read. It is the highest low value commodity. IF it is NOT, rpt IF it is NOT, reaching you first thing in the morning, it becomes valueless ! Second, if it is read and put to other use, as pointed out by others, what is wrong if it used as toilet paper. Or should it be thrown on the streets as is done in the country that this dude comes from ? Third, look at the English he is writing…. misspelled words.. et al. Dude (check et al, if you don’t know it). Let me tell you, and yes, I visit villages often, very remote, very difficult to live in, and they go to computer classes, and they do know how to use it. I am 54, and started with computers in 1982, and today I learn from these people in the villages also .. Buzzz offff sorry at this age to write like this. Get your facts right first. I have been to your country and I know what it is. I apologize if I have hurt your sensitivities, but I too have one. Have a good day!