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Google The Internet Businesses

Google Radio Ads Experiencing Early Troubles 41

Posted by Zonk from the try-to-avoid-the-random-porn-ads-during-drive-time dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Google's tech-heavy solution to advertising has worked wonders on the internet, and made it a friend to bloggers everywhere. The low-tech nature of traditional radio, though, has caused some conflicts with Google's radio ad service. The impersonal nature of online ads are very different than the one-on-one personalized service that radio advertising normally uses. While Google ads are running on some 700 radio stations, that's a very small part of the market. They are committed to improving, but onlookers think it will take a change in pitch. 'Whether Google can succeed in radio "is questionable, because you do need relationships with radio stations to give you something of value. If you don't have radio-focused personnel...you'll get the low-hanging fruit but may not be able to grow the market," said Maribeth Papuga, senior vice president and director of radio buying for Media Vest, a part of ad firm Publicis Groupe. "Their challenge is going to be having a broad enough list of markets and stations to make it a viable enough player on a national scale."'"
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Google Radio Ads Experiencing Early Troubles More

Google Radio Ads Experiencing Early Troubles

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  • Google may be Big Brother (Score:3, Informative)

    by alshithead ( 981606 ) * on Saturday February 17, 2007 @01:26AM (#18048584)
    Considering the fact that Google invaded North Carolina for a data center employing ~200 folks and gets to escape property taxes and other state taxes for up to thirty years...they seem to be on a pretty sound business model. I can't imagine their radio business will fail considering the effectiveness of their other efforts. All it takes is money and they have plenty of that.

    "In January, Google announced it would build the computer center and bring up to 210 jobs in four years to Lenoir, a community 70 miles northwest of Charlotte hurting from the collapse of its furniture industry. In exchange, Caldwell and state officials approved incentives that could be worth more than $260 million over 30 years."

    This from the Charlotte Observer...don't know if you may need to register... http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/business/16 711064.htm [charlotte.com] .

    Incredible, 200 jobs gets them incentives worth $260 million over 30 years? Hell, they even got the elected county officials out there to help buy up the properties for their data center. The whole thing stinks on way too many levels. I guess I can rule out getting a job with them. :)
    • The big news last night came by way of the AdWords Blog [wordpress.com]about Google making two big changes. As I explained in great detail over at Search Engine Land, the two changes have to do with "transparency" and "a new quality algorithm." In terms of the transparency, Google will be adding a quality score column, that includes a minimum bid CPC for all advertisers today or tomorrow.
    • Any corporation with a name can do that in this state. All you hafta do is find a county that's empty and poor due to textiles leaving, and you'll be welcomed with open arms.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dave1g ( 680091 )
      Sounds about right to me.

      $260,000,000 / 30 years = $8,666,666/year

      $8,666,666/year / 200 jobs = $43,333/person/year.

      If the average salary is 43k per year for those jobs then its a win for the local economy. And its actually better than that with the multiplier effect. [wikipedia.org]

      Any economist care to check me on that? I think its right given my HS and University micro and macro economics courses.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by maxume ( 22995 )
        Well, you have to assume that their presence is strictly beneficial; if they pump raw sewage into the streets or something, the cost is going to be larger.

        Two other things: for the government(not the area) to net the $260,000,000 that they are not getting, Google's presence would likely have to inject much more. Also, your calculations would depend on the average salary being more than 43,333 per year(even by $1).

        The good news is that the government groups are actually doing the following comparison: (Net b
    • 260 million over 30 over 210 equals about 41k. sooooo.. yeah...
    • I think you bought the CO's story a bit too quickly. The real story goes something like this: under the standard tax rules, if Google invested $600M or so in NC they would pay $300M (!) in taxes. They got a $250M rebate so now they pay $50M. You didn't see similar stories about their Oregon datacenter because most of the taxes that were discounted in NC don't exist to begin with in OR. For example, in NC you have to pay (as a company) something called "personal property tax", plus there's sales tax, and
    • Businesses should not be forced to pay taxes because it only increases their overhead. An increased overhead means that their product costs more. This is why it is often said that businesses don't pay taxes, but merely collect them.

  • i think... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Saturday February 17, 2007 @01:26AM (#18048588) Homepage
    The impersonal nature of online ads are very different than the one-on-one personalized service that radio advertising normally uses.

    Don't you have that backwards?
    • That was the first thing I thought as well. I had to read it a couple of times to be sure I was reading it correctly. It is backwards.

      • "That was the first thing I thought as well. I had to read it a couple of times to be sure I was reading it correctly. It is backwards."

        ... but its not backwards in the Soviet Googleplex ... where ads personalize YOU.

    • How is it backwards? When you advertise with radio you do in fact typically work personally with an ad agent.

    • Re:i think... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nmb3000 ( 741169 ) on Saturday February 17, 2007 @02:09AM (#18048744) Journal
      "The impersonal nature of online ads are very different than the one-on-one personalized service that radio advertising normally uses."

      Don't you have that backwards?

      IANAP, but I don't think so.

      With online ads, you see static text that says something. You read it silently and interpret it's logical meaning. 5 seconds and you're done.

      With radio ads, you are listening to a person's voice for 30 seconds to a minute. You hear the inflections and emotional state of the voice. Years of conversing with people have taught you to pick up subtle hints of honesty, deceit, confidence, etc. In addition to hearing what is verbally said and deducing it's practical meaning, you are consciously and subconsciously analyzing the voice and it's message.

      Yeah, that might be over the top a bit, but I think it has merit. Online vs radio ads are like 1-D compared to 2-D. Going from radio to television is like going to 3-D. Now you not only have voice, but images as well. Think about how things changed with the Nixon/Kennedy debates that were televised for the first time after being on the radio for years.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by BoberFett ( 127537 )
        Read the whole quote: "one on one personalized service"

        Perhaps you're looking for the word "personable" not "personal". Hearing a voice on the radio could be considered personable, but there's definitely nothing "one on one" or "personal" about it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by unitron ( 5733 )
          "Hearing a voice on the radio could be considered personable, but there's definitely nothing "one on one" or "personal" about it."

          You're just saying that because you never heard any of the spots I used to cut. :-)

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by kerm1t ( 1065370 )
        tv and radio are both passive while the internet is active. tv and radio ads are impersonal because they don't know to whom they are advertising. the internet (search advertising) is different in that users are actively searching for something. relevant ad-content is shown along side non-ad-content. the internet is personal because ads are relevant to what the user seeks...

        you have a good point about tv and radio perhaps being more powerful media because of the more human interaction, but in these media vie
      • I don't care how sweet she sounds, I'm not buying Ensure, even if they play a personable ad for 60 seconds.

        I do buy stuff off of Google ads when I'm looking for products because it's stuff I actually want to buy.

        So why is Google into radio ads again? Broadcast is antithetical to their experience.
    • It's backwards in that the online ads are very targeted and may have more personal relevance than the radio ads. But, as the others have said, radio ads have someone talking to you, making the connection between the ad and the user (at least seemingly) more personal - nmb3000's analogy of dimensions describes it well.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by maxume ( 22995 )
      The old standby that the viewer/listener is the product is the answer here.

      As another reply said, when you buy advertising time from a radio station, you work with a person, when you buy advertising space on the internet, you click around a web site.

  • Probable solution (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Bob54321 ( 911744 )

    If you don't have radio-focused personnel...you'll get the low-hanging fruit but may not be able to grow the market

    So, given what we know about Google, they will just buy/hire some radio-focused personnel. Its not as if they don't have the resources!
  • microsoft gets in the sewing machine business

    youtube gets in the pinball machine business

    myspace gets in the newspaper business

    seriously, what genius at google thought radio adverts were a perfect fit for that company?
  • this Mark Cuban guy?
  • "because you do need relationships with radio stations to give you something of value. If you don't have radio-focused personnel...you'll get the low-hanging fruit"

    Why don't they just say Google needs to play the payola game. That's how radio has always worked.

  • ...The impersonal nature of online ads are very different than the one-on-one personalized service that radio advertising normally uses....


    Isn't that completely the wrong way round? The whole point of Google's online ads are that they're personalised on a per-user basis, while radio ads have to use the "shotgun effect". :-/
  • Radio is a dead medium. When was the last time you listened to the radio in your car, other than to be a host for your iPod? And when you did, did you leave the fscking commercials on? I think not. Let's review the list of places to listen to audio based entertainment in order of popularity and/or relevance:

    1) MP3s and other compressed digital audio, iPod
    2) Satellite Radio/Cable digital audio channels. and with no commercials!
    3) low-power, local FM radio broadcast for iPod to connect to ancient stereo
    4)
  • I run a few radio stations using the "google" automation system. Here's how it worked out... Scott Studios was purchased by dMarc broadcasting a few years back, which was an Up-and-coming conglomerate. They had quite the national ad base. Then google purchased dMarc, and thus the RevenueSuite system was born. Stations pay for the computers by playing ads from google on the air. After the computers are paid off (about 24 months later) the station can opt to keep in the RevenueSuite system and just get cash f

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