• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, April 17, 2009

Google, which hasn't exactly been embraced by the traditional media marketplace, Thursday revamped its fledgling Google TV Ads service to leverage the medium it knows best: online. The new feature, dubbed "Google TV Ads Online," will utilize the same Google TV Ads bidding platform to plan, buy, and measure ads placed in the advertising breaks of traditional TV shows that are watched online - either on a network's original video site, or on one of the many online video aggregators that have blossomed on the Internet, including the biggest, Google's own YouTube.

In conjunction with the "beta launch" of the new Google TV Ads Online service, Google said it was also revamping YouTube to incorporate more full-length episodes of traditional TV shows and movies, and that advertising inventory for that content would also be accessible via the Google TV Ads Online buying platform.

The move follows a relatively slow start to the initial version of Google TV Ads, which has been embraced by some agencies, and especially by so-called "long tail" advertisers, and direct response marketers, but which has only gotten tepid support from big traditional TV content providers. The bulk of Google TV Ads licensed content has come from its deal to manage and sell the local advertising avails for TV networks distributed via EchoStar's DISH network satellite TV service, and some direct deals Google has struck for smaller digital tier cable networks distributed by NBC Universal, as well as Hallmark Channel.

And while NBC Universal brass has spoken openly about the innovation of its Google relationship, it still has not agreed to make its most premium inventory available via Google's Web-based advertising sales system, nor have the other major networks.

The move also follows Google's pullout from similar attempts to leverage its dominant role in the search advertising world into other traditional media such as radio, newspapers and magazines.

But the new Google TV Ads Online approach actually is more consistent with Google's original approach to managing online search advertising, as well as the company's core mission statement: "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

While Google's online search technology has clearly enabled online users to do that, it wasn't until it stumbled on the Google Ad Words system for advertisers and agencies, and the Google AdSense system for online publishers, that it figured out how to make a market around online search advertising, which led to its dominant role in the fastest growing segment of the ad industry over the past decade.

Failing to repeat that success in radio, print, and generating only mediocre acceptance in the traditional TV marketplace, Google now seems to be replicating its original search advertising model for TV content that is distributed online, a path that likely will be met with less resistance than content distributed through proprietary cable, satellite and broadcast TV platforms.

"It works in the same way as Google TV Ads," Product Manager Geoff Smith wrote in a post on Google's blog late yesterday. "TV Ads advertisers can target specific programs and select their cost-per-thousand (CPM) bid. Based on their targets, budget and bid, ads are inserted in the same program breaks that were designed for advertising when the programs first aired."

Smith said that in addition to the conventional TV commercial breaks, some inventory would be accessible in so-called "pre-roll" and "post-roll" formats, which are more the norm for online video content. He also said advertisers and agencies would receive "measurement tools" showing how the online TV ads performed.

Google has quietly been pitching agencies on the new concept for a couple of months, and the company is expected to become more public on its plans now that the beta version has been officially launched.

On April 28th, Google TV Ads Director Michael Steib is scheduled to discuss Google's role in TV industry's burgeoning online trading marketplace, alongside top executives from its chief rivals at Microsoft's Navic and Spot Runner at Media magazine's annual Outfront Conference in New York.