Audience Measurement, Day Two: Google Takes on TV Advertising

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The search engine giant plans to build on its successful approach to online advertising. But will it seek industry accreditation?

“There are two Americas – people who watch CNN and people who watch Fox,” Keval Desai, Google’s director of product management, told participants in Audience Measurement 3.0 yesterday morning.  

The search engine giant hopes to make it easier for advertisers to target either group effectively with Google TV ads. The service became available in the U.S. recently after being tested with help from partners DISH Network and Nielsen.

Based the approach used in Google’s successful AdWords program, Google TV Ads allows advertisers to select the networks, parts of the day, and programs in which their commercials will air and to bid for the spots they want. Clients don’t have to pay for the ads up front. Google delivers a report to them within 24 hours with verification that their commercials ran and data on their performance and effectiveness. “You’re paying for the impressions you’ve got,” Desai said.

Currently 96 networks with 30 million viewers offer the ads, said Desai. Google can track viewership through set-top boxes. Advertisers have ranged from GM to E*TRADE, but some are much smaller online companies.  

“The ads are guaranteed to run,” Desai said in answer to a question from an attendee. “This is not remnant inventory.”  

Some unanswered questions remain. Asked whether Google planned to submit TV Ads to the Media Rating Council, an industry group that evaluates media-measurement systems, Desai hesitated.  

“I don’t have a point of view on the MRC,” he said, but added that Google is open to working with the industry on the issue.  

The AM 3.0 conference brought together almost 600 professionals from 19 countries, said Bob Barocci, president and CEO of the ARF. Organized around the theme “Catch me if you can,” it offered ideas on how to measure consumers’ behavior at a time of rapid technological change.