Among the various changes that Google has been making and the surprises it has been providing its users with, is the experimenting its been doing with advertisements. In an effort to attract as much attention from users as it can, Google has tried video, mobile and many other types of advertisements. Now they are planning to introduce the new idea of interactive ads in their products. The CEO Eric Schmidt says that Google is trying to take a break from the old fashioned search and banner ads that gave a lot of success to online companies such as AOL, Yahoo, Google and others. How is this going to work, is described below.
The How
As always Google is not very straight forward about its plans and no one is really sure what is it going to be like, but some have signified their concept. The Wall Street Journal says, “Such ads, which could appear anywhere on a Web page, not just inside a video, would be like mini-Web pages.” What they are trying to say, probably, is that these ads will not be a part of a web page but sort of like small independent web pages embedded in a web page.
Also the ads will be interactive in the sense that people will watch a video, post a comment and read other users’ comments, live. The ad would become a mini community sort of thing related to the particular advertisement. This idea, although appears to be a very good one, is very limited. Limited because there will be a separate mini community thing for every ad and remain till it only. A better idea would be to connect these ads to an online community or blog, where people would be able to share more. One good option would be Twitter. Although both companies share a connection for Google’s real time tweets on Twitter, both companies haven’t yet openly considered to work together on advertising as well.
So-Forth
Eric Schmidt has not provided the media with any sort of date by which this idea will be applied, but he says that it will soon be seen and become common on the Internet. Adding to the information a Google spokesman said, “We don’t have anything additional or specific to announce, but we’re definitely doubling down on display and video ads. We’re always looking to develop new formats and features that make them more interactive, engaging and effective.”
This leads to another point. Phones and many other gadgets now a days support web browsing (in HTML and HTML5) allowing them to be independent of media. Hence an interactive video sounds really fascinating.
Also Google’s YouTube is providing Video ads already. YouTube has always proved to be profitable and this idea of interactive ads may just take even YouTube to a whole new level.
The idea of interactivity in advertisements will obviously prove to be a profitable and publicizing for Google, but they should keep in mind that Apple is coming up with the same idea as well. Everyone knows that Apple is famous for its outstanding interface and Google should take this competition seriously.
