Google Exec Hints At TV Ads

Tim Armstrong, Google's vice president of advertising sales, didn't offer much comfort Wednesday afternoon to Madison Avenue executives who fear that the search giant intends to muscle in on their turf. Although Armstrong didn't outline any concrete plans, he gave the impression that Google is looking to expand even more into traditional media, including TV, print and radio.

"The notion is... we're able to help advertisers break into other media, such as print, radio, and other areas, which will help the publishers themselves do better yield management," Armstrong said during a question and answer session following his lunchtime keynote address at the Software & Information Industry Association in New York. Overall, Armstrong noted: "Our advertisers and publishing partners want to run their ads everywhere that makes sense for them, as long as it's profitable."

The company made waves on Jan. 17 with its acquisition of dMarc, a firm that allows insertion of ads into radio airplay through an online interface. Some ad execs view the dMarc acquisition as a further sign that Google wants to sell ads in traditional media, cutting out planners and buyers with its direct model.

The company's recent experiment with print ad sales in the Chicago Tribune has only increased anxiety--as has the fact that dMarc's technology can be extended to TV ad placement.

"In a sense, Google is agnostic to the inventory," Armstrong said, asserting that old media categories are not relevant to a digital business: "In the media world you have silos between print, radio, television, Internet, those types of areas--which exist because it was in some ways an analog world."

Expansion will be limited only by profitability: "We would see expanding the ad program up until the point where it makes sense for the advertisers in terms of ROI and in a yield management sense for the partners."

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