• The Wall Street Journal, Friday, October 3, 2008 10:45 AM

The success of Google has always been that much more impressive because of the search giant's refusal to advertise in any significant way. Its spectacular growth has always been a result of word of mouth. But that may be changing, as sources say Google has been taking meetings with ad agency executives in recent months, perhaps with an eye on launching a full-scale ad campaign.

The push is not without its detractors though, and powerful ones at that. Allegedly, some Google employees were prepared to buy time during an NBC Olympics broadcast to promote a Google product, but the effort was quashed by none other than founders Sergy Brin and Larry Page, who felt a splashy television ad wouldn't fit with Google's image.

Still, Google last year hired Andy Berndt, a former co-president of Ogilvy & Mather in New York, to find new ways to promote the company. Ad agencies supposedly met with so far include Wieden + Kennedy and Taxi.

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal »