10e20 Blog

Google is everywhere. From its desire to publish ads in newspapers to its move to position itself in the radio market to Eric Schmidt’s statement that “Your mobile phone should be free” (since Google ads will pay for cell phones, of course), one sincerely wonders where Google is headed next. Are we in for an ad-based world where every media element that surrounds us is infiltrated by Google?

Google is a search company, but from its recent announcements of saturating traditional media, it is also a serious marketing company. There’s no doubt that they want to monetize anywhere and everywhere. But where should the line be drawn? With Google positioning itself so firmly in everyday media, it’s questionable where they’re headed. What’s next? Popular books with ad excerpts by Google — because it’s simply possible (and because they’re Google)? Will Google create another ReviewMe? They certainly have the capital to fund and compete well with the recently-launched service and can compensate their participants well (the YouTube deal closed today for $1.775 billion, not the original $1.65 billion), including providing their participants with products they’d want reviews from. That essentially allows Google to kill two birds with one stone…

Google is making marketing moves that really question the end of innocence. A clean ad-free world is long gone. My favorite part of Back to the Future II touched upon this when Marty found himself in the year 2015 and the billboards literally jumped at him. It’s already here and it’s in our reading habits, our listening habits, and our web browsing habits.

With over 60% of searches being performed on Google, it is in a position to be powerful and could change the way its users use the web (plus gain a huge increase of users) if it offered incentives for its loyal user base besides search results coupled with ads. That’s where I suppose newspaper ads, radio ads, and cell phone ads come in. But why not take it to the next level?

I think that Google should actively participate in its users’ ad programs besides simply featuring the ads on its website. Right now, Google is a portal and a means to an end. It has its websites, it is firmly settling itself in other areas of advertisement providers, but it could do more — and none of these other advertisement agencies can match it: it can learn what a person wants from his browsing habits and offer him incentives based on ads geared to his targeted search. Google can offer serious freebies with the goal in mind to spread a product or service via word of mouth. What better advertising is there really than word of mouth? Ultimately, it’s the recommendation from the reliable source that drives people to buying something. That’s why Social Media became so popular. This isn’t much different, and Google can maintain a stronghold on its brand — even increasing this a bit — because psychologically, people are driven by incentives and it will likely increase usage of its search engine.

Blingo already does something like this, though its search is based on Google’s search engine and nobody really knows about it. It was popular for awhile among my peers but nobody I knew won anything and everyone ended up going back to Google, even though Blingo was using the same engine for its results. This illustrates how powerful www.google.com is and how Google really is the only search engine in the position to offer this kind of incentive to its users.

Truthfully, what could be better than Google providing services to people who are looking for the service — on its own dime? Google should put the freebie link somewhere within its search results to the product/service it is offering, which also encourages Google surfers to really read the content of its search results (search results and ads to be digested instead of ignored). Everybody wins.

Google can continue going in the direction of marketing in traditional media, but it can always do better within its own search results and benefit its advertisers and users in the process.