Commentary

Google Needs Traditional TV Ad To Sell A Product: Its Own

by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, May 11, 2009

So Google needs TV after all. It's starting a new TV advertising campaign to get people to consider Google's new Web browser Chrome.

Isn't the Internet's highly vaunted blogging and social network community enough to sell a product? Not this time.

Internet executives are always talking about how digital media will kill old traditional media. Why would anyone need the help of the big, traditional TV media to get people to find the coolest, best stuff on the Web?

Earlier this year NBC Universal/News Corp. spent some big dollars -- or lost some, depending on your point of view -- by running a sharp, funny 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl for Hulu.

More than a few industry observers said the TV ad helped Hulu to get some wind in its sails -- grabbing big consumer and advertising attention in recent months.

Surely, one TV ad can't be enough to make a business plan look good. But NBC Universal, realizing it was about long-term consumer awareness, sacrificed $3 million from a paying advertiser to get no immediate cash for a new, unproven digital video Web site. Not to be outdone by its own online research, Google executives said it was making the move to the bigger screen after seeing the popularity of its commercial on YouTube. The company says since it was uploaded in January, the commercial -- produced in-house by Google in Japan -- has been viewed 2 million times.

All that consumer attention can be just be too tempting. Sure, search and email marketing can work wonders. But traditional TV can give you 30 million viewers in just one 30-second period in "American Idol" - DVR issues aside.

The key difference is that a Google's Chrome and Hulu are big-name, broad-based consumer products. That's why they need big-name, broad-based media.

4 comments about "Google Needs Traditional TV Ad To Sell A Product: Its Own".

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Douglas Ferguson from College of Charleston, May 11, 2009 at 2:13 p.m.
Of course they'll use outside media, to avoid preaching only to the choir. It's normal business for media to promote using other media. You'd hardly call a broadcast station display ad in the newspaper some kind of an endorsement of newspaper advertising, so why is it suspect for an Internet company to use broadcast media? It's called a marketing mix.
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John Carnegie from Carnegie Consultants, May 11, 2009 at 3:38 p.m.

I guess not enough Windows-powered computer owners were adopting the new Google browser...they've still given us Mac OSX-powered computer owners the cold shoulder...we certainly know how to spread the word if a product is good...we may be less than 10% market share, but we sure know how to be evangelists.

Kevin Mirek, May 11, 2009 at 4:46 p.m.

The article says it all. TV can live perfectly well without the Internet. but Internet cannot survive without TV. Why TV executives continue to "buy into" the kool-aide party that multi-platform distribution (Internet, mobile) is the way to success is, according to this article's insight, insanity. Without TV, one wouldn't know where to go among a billion websites. It's time TV grew some cojones, denied content to the Internet, and let Internet see how expensive it is to produce News or CSI.

Carl LaFong, May 12, 2009 at 10:33 a.m.

"But NBC Universal, realizing it was about long-term consumer awareness, sacrificed $3 million from a paying advertiser to get no immediate cash for a new"

NBC didn't give up $3 million running that Hulu Super Bowl ad. The network couldn't sell out the game, so at the last-minute gave Hulu the spot thru "media credits" that Hulu is entitled to thru its part ownership by NBC.