What Does Google TV Mean For Internet Marketers?
By Anna Johnson on May 21st, 2010Google’s slogan for the launch of Google TV is ‘TV meets web. Web meets TV’ and that’s essentially how Internet marketers might view Google TV. TV marketing meets web marketing. Web marketing meets TV marketing. But what exactly does Google TV mean for Internet marketers and Internet marketing in general?
Firstly, let me confine this discussion to what Google TV means for Internet marketers, as opposed to what the general convergence of the Internet and television means for Internet marketers. A LOT can be said about that. It could probably fill a book. It probably already has…
When it comes to Google TV, here’s what we know:
- 1. Google is the dominant means by which people search the Internet.
2. Google runs a vast Internet advertising network – serving online ads to all kinds of websites, big and small.
3. With Google TV, Google plans to provide (if not dominate) the means by which people search and navigate BOTH the Internet and television.
4. As Internet and TV convergence gathers pace, Google will continue developing advertising opportunities for online video providers, both via YouTube (the most popular online video site) and potentially by means of video ad network (either as part of its existing Google Adsense network or otherwise).
5. Google’s main revenue source is advertising – where ads are sold via its Google Adwords program on its search engine and in the Google Adsense ad network.
6. Google will likely apply its search and content based advertising model to Google TV.
Now, if Google TV becomes popular with TV viewers, then Google will control at least part of the supply of video content to television consumers. It follows that, as more TV viewers use Google TV to search, browse and even consume video content, marketers will want to reach those viewers and be part of viewers’ search, browsing and/or consumption transactions.
To effectively market to those viewers, marketers will need to use the most appropriate tools and messages. In the Google TV world, where ‘TV meets web. Web meets TV’ this may mean using approaches that combine tactics and techniques from both Internet marketing and television advertising. Not that I’m talking about anything that isn’t already happening: it’s where online video marketing is already heading.
Where the biggest opportunity for Internet marketers may lie, however, is in seizing the opportunity to be part of Google TV in the first place. Just as there was a time when Internet marketers could use Google Adwords to reach sufficiently large, responsive audiences for relatively low click-costs, there may also be a similar window of opportunity in the development of Google TV.
And this is what I think Google TV really means for Internet marketers: the opportunity – however short or long-lived – to reach TV audiences relatively cheaply.
Of course, one major difference between taking advantage of Google TV when it becomes available… and taking advantage of Google Adwords back in the day… is that the production costs for succeeding on Google TV are likely to be much higher.
Unlike writing a text ad for Google Adwords, you’ll need to produce video content. And it better be high quality video content. Internet audiences may increasingly expect high quality online videos, but the expectations of TV audiences are much, much, much higher still.
Having said all this, there are no guarantees that Google TV will take off. It won’t launch until the fall of 2010 (2011 for developers), so Internet marketers are ill-advised to drop everything and devote everything to this new platform. But if you haven’t yet embraced online video, this may be all the more reason to do so.
I certainly believe that the Internet will stay a multimedia environment where text, audio and video will all continue to thrive… but if, as an Internet marketer, you’re looking for a new bandwagon to jump on, Google TV may well be it.
