• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 3, 2009

Google took online marketing to billboards Monday, launching an advertising campaign to promote its enterprise productivity suite of apps. Giant billboards will run in four U.S. cities throughout August to encourage businesses to rely on Google applications.

Targeting IT managers stuck in traffic, the campaign, dubbed "Going Google," begins today in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. Commuters will see a different message each weekday throughout the month promoting the tools. The campaign touts the benefits of switching to Google.

The billboards tell the story of an anonymous IT manager who gets so fed up with the typical IT status quo that his company eventually goes Google, writes Andy Berndt, Google managing director for Google Creative Lab, in a blog post.

Supporting the campaign, a "Spread the Word" Web site that offers promotional material, such as posters, fact sheets and weekly giveaways, Twitter campaign at @GoogleAtWork, and matching hashtag, #gonegoogle.

Analysts suggest the jab at Microsoft is intended to accelerate adoption of Google's productivity tools, which Microsoft traditionally dominates. "Microsoft is trying to move in on Google turf in search, and Google is trying to do the same thing in desktop apps," says Todd Greenwald, senior analyst at equity firm Signal Hill Group, Baltimore, MD. "I don't think it's going to generate real meaningful business for Google, but it could take some away from Microsoft."

The ads send a warning sign to Microsoft that Google is a rich company, too, and will market the products in an effort to take market share, according to David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst. "It's like throwing a warning pitch at a batter that says 'look at what we can do,'" he says.

As popular as Google has become, most users don't know about their application products. In November, eMarketer estimates that Google held 0.3% market share for its spreadsheet application versus Microsoft Excel at 24%. Microsoft Office holds a bigger lead in applications than Google has in search, Hallerman says.

Paid search ads, which drive Google's revenue and profit, create a network affect, but the apps business doesn't, suggests a Wall Street equity analyst who requested anonymity. Nothing about a thousand people joining Google Apps last week makes me more likely to adopt the apps today, he says.

Some analysts believe the billboards send a branding message such as thinking about Google as an apps provider, because advertisers typically rely on billboards to highlight the company, rather than send a product message.

Analysts also question why Google decided to run the ads in August -- a month when most people take vacations and few people are around.

About 1.75 million businesses, schools and organizations have gone Google, including Motorola, University of Notre Dame, and Mercy Corps. Each day, 3,000 more organizations join them, according to Berndt.