Google's Campaign Against Bad Commercials - Page 2

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Google's boldest move in that direction has been the introduction of video advertising last summer.

The news might have caused some to shudder. That's because when it comes to demand-generation advertising, Coca-Cola's red-nosed fat man is about as tolerable as it gets. More often you get a local used car lot telling you about their limited time offers and how you need to seize this chance to BUY! BUY! BUY!

Catch the evening news and every couple of minutes it's a string of direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical commercials urging you to ask your doctor if this drug will help you relieve your arthritis. Whether you have arthritis or not, of course.

The worst part about it, though, is that unless you own a DVR, all you can do to avoid obnoxious commercials is get up and go to the kitchen for five minutes.

So how does it square with Kim Malone that Google is trying to get into the demand-generation side of the business? The answer is that Malone has faith Google can help make demand-generation advertising less "annoying" on the Web.

She argued that the key will be getting advertisers to understand that they need to "invite" potential costumers, not "intrude" upon them with marketing messages. And on the Internet, with its variety of available metrics, it's getting easier to make advertisers understand.

"If you're watching television and you get up to go to the bathroom [during the commercials], the advertisers didn't know that," Malone said. "Now they do. It's useful information."

Because Google's video advertisements will not play until the user clicks on them, the most important metric for an advertiser to see is how many times their ads play compared to how many times they could have played. Advertisers can also tell how far into their ad users watch. If it's a 30-second ad and nobody watches after five seconds, it's a pretty good hint that maybe something needs changing.

Malone said she's already seeing advertisers starting to get it. Her best evidence comes from one of the biggest demand-generation brand advertisers there is, Proctor & Gamble, which came out with an advertising campaign called "Men with cramps."

Malone is optimistic others will follow Proctor & Gamble's lead as they transition from TV -- where they could get away with obnoxious ads -- to the Internet -- where customers won't click if they don't want to.

"Brand advertisers are more and more beginning to understand that this is good for them, that they don't want to annoy people," Malone said. "They want to invite; they do not want to intrude."

It's hard to say if they want to or not. The good news is that they might not have a choice.