Google video ads will fail
Google video ads are out of beta and have launched today, as reported by JenSense. TechCrunch, ascendant keeper of all Web 2.0 hype (and victim of a panned redesign, which no one should actually give a shit about, because if they were actually true Web 2.0′ers, they’d be reading it in RSS, and this is a long paranthetical aside), is not too enthuasiastic. I concur. Google video ads will fail.
Why have Google text ads been successful? I’ll offer a few reasons:
- Because they are contextual.
- Because people don’t mind text ads as much as image ads or video ads.
- Because those who place text ads don’t much care where they’re placed — they just want inbound clicks.
- Because it’s incredibly easy to make a text ad.
Google is shoehorning video ads into the same advertising system, and it will fail. The target audience for their video ads is BIG advertisers, not the plethora of small businesses who make AdWords such a lucrative enterprise. Set against the 4 positives of text ads above, here are 4 characteristics of video ads.
- Video ads are not contextual.
- The CTR on video ads will be terrible compared to text ads. People don’t want to be bombarded by video.
- The target market for advertisers—the MasterCards and Coors Lites of the world—will care where their ads are placed. It’s all about the brand, not the clickthru.
- It’s a pain in the ass to make a video.
This is just another example of Google losing focus. Every successive project they hurl themselves into is less exciting, less innovative, and more likely to fail. They’re trying to make inroads in spaces that other companies know better and do better. Tell me, how is…
- Click to Call faring vs. Skype?
- That print ads experiment faring vs., uh, regular print ads?
- Google Scholar (which I just heard of yesterday—lotta buzz) faring vs. Lexis-Nexus
I’ll be waiting over here by the search box, Google. I’m sure that career with the White Sox is going to work out.
June 12th, 2006 at 9:26 am
I think Google is aiming at higher quality publishers, including those that want movie trailers easily accessible. Google makes this EASY for these publishers!
June 12th, 2006 at 10:20 am
I’m not able to opt-into these video ads at the moment — I asssume Google will be rolling it out to a wider range of publishers as their inventory expands — but I’d like to try them. I’m a hypocrite like that. I just want to see the revenues for text vs image vs video.
I guess one reason why I’m skeptical is that text ads from Google are generally more lucrative than image ads, so I wonder if the next step (video) will really benefit publishers.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I think SOME advertisers will bother. I run a tile related forum and I made a page that suppliers can add their video’s too (most have youtube accounts & video’s these days right?). I’m sorry to say to yet not many have bothered but I hope in time a page with a few good video’s on it will look smart / unique.
I think it will be here for a while that’s for sure. So people will eventually use it as a way to be different.
It could start a whole new style of websites advertising such things.