• Ad Age, Tuesday, April 3, 2007 10:46 AM

TV, of course, is the big news of the day coming out of Google HQ in Mountain View, Calif., but Ad Age takes a closer look at the Web giant's efforts to bolster its display and video networks. Web traffic measurer comScore, which filed to go public on Monday, says Google's total network has grown 24 percent over the past year--now reaching 62 percent of the country. Meanwhile, AdSense, its publisher program, is featuring more and more display and video spots instead of the traditional text ads.

"Google is definitely sneaking up on people in terms of being a display and video network," said Bryan Weiner, chief operating officer of the search marketing firm 360i. "It's almost inevitable that they'll be one of the largest display and video networks."

Perhaps, but wider deployment of video and display ads doesn't necessarily translate into success. Publishers will ultimately pass judgment on that, depending on how much revenue they earn from the new ads.

As Jeff Lanctot, senior vice president-global media at Avenue A/Razorfish, points out: "Right now [Google is] very successful using AdSense to service direct response," but has struggled to establish itself as a strong force in brand advertising. Media buyers say Google needs to show advertisers and publishers that it can sell effective premium inventory, which also means raising the profile of its so-called "long tail" publishers, and opening up its inventory to third-party ad-servers--like DoubleClick.

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