Google is venturing into television advertising and Google has entered into a partnership with NBC in their efforts to get into television advertising. This partnership will allow them to sell ads on the selected cable networks of NBC Universal.
NBC Universal networks will allow small slots for Google advertisements in their networks including CNBC, Oxygen, MSNBC and Sci Fi. If this initial phase runs well this partnership can be strengthened by extending the partnership to the other areas of NBC Universal properties. The success of this partnership relies greatly on the initial research and development that will come out with tailor made solutions for Google TV Ads platform. This new deal with NBC Universal may make many other large TV networks to open their doors for Google.
Google’s efforts on entering into TV advertising industry started almost a year and a half ago with the aim of helping those advertisers who wanted to target specific group audiences through TV. Google will also help small companies that are already using online advertising tools but not yet tried television ads. Though it has started one and half years ago Google was not as successful as they are in online advertising. They managed to get a small slot on Dish Network which is a satellite TV provider. However, this new deal is bound to help Google to get a better hold of television industry and it is a sure path to success for Google.
NBC Universal will be earning about $6 billion a year through the inventory that is going to be used by Google on NBC networks. This deal will allow users to buy advertising time through Google on prime channels like Sci Fi which has a reach of 1.4 million viewers in prime time. Advertisers with lesser budget will also be able to buy time in other cable channels that are less popular. The Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Advertising at NBC Universal stated that NBC Universal has just made a very small portion of the inventory to Google according to its standards. NBC has sold most of its advertising time in last spring and now what is being made available to Google is just the scatter advertising time.
However, Google still considers this minor portion of this inventory to be significant because it will help its advertisers to get greater returns on the dollars spent. Google will certainly make the best use of this scatter advertising time to run its own research before it can tie up with other television networks.
Now the question is how it is going to affect the online advertising and will Google try to woo their customers to opt for TV ads after their success with this new deal; as of now we cannot be sure of the outcome. However, Google is likely to face competition in the television advertising as other cable providers such as Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Cox are teaming up come up with their own system of targeted ads on television under the name Canoe Ventures.