Valleywag
When Google pitched ad products to New York agencies last night, newbie Googler Long Ellis got stuck with selling Google TV to the crowd. It's a tough job. While even Google Radio has about 1,600 advertisers, Google TV advertising currently counts around 200. Why so low? Don't be fooled by the brand name. Google TV advertising isn't much of an innovation yet.
Other than the automated way it sells ads — following auction theory, slots go to the highest bidder, but at the second highest bidder's price — Google TV advertising isn't really that far ahead of what's already out there.
While Google cofounder Sergey Brin likes to say that Google can make TV advertising "almost as accountable as online advertising," the truth is, Google relies a great deal on Nielsen for demographics and data. Just like everyone else. Which raises the question: How did Google find even 200 suckers for this product?
Comments
I can't legally say much about this but yes, Google's broadcast advertising models suck. There were some much better companies out there doing the same thing.
Everyone in this space relies on Nielsen and Arbitron, which is very flawed data. That's all I can really say at the moment until some legal issues are resolved.
were you there nicholas? darn, would have been nice to say hi to you - btw, here is my complete video coverage of the event for you home gamers:
[www.centernetworks.com]
This project got the "publish or perish" dictum a few months back. If Google reports a bad quarter this week you can rest assured this thing is dead.
Would you buy ads from this guy?
The auction model well only works with CPC ads.
The advertiser knows how much a visitor is worth, they bid some fraction of that. TV (and radio) advertising is not directly tied to visitors. Hence there is no demonstrable ROI for your advertising dollar.
Agree that the reliance on Nielson is a problem, but the discount you can achieve on some pretty heavy-hitting media makes up for it.
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