ArgainBay weblog

In an article from The L.A. Times, another business maneuver from Google is announced in which they will purchase DMarc Broadcasting Inc., a company that sells radio ad time. At first glance, this may seem like a strange deal for Google and off-track to their mission. And, one opinion in the article states that “Translating [targeted advertising] to radio may be difficult.”

I think what a lot of people are forgetting is that Google knows A LOT about what people want to know and what they’re looking for! Additionally, with the multiple services that Google offers, they have better user-tracking capabilities than ever before. So not only do they know what users search for, but they also know who those people are…and geographically where they live. This gives them the ability to compile demographic information to the Nth degree. Now, you combine their online demographic database with radio/music demographic information and you get the ability to target radio ads better than ever before!

But wait, there’s more…
As most Internet users remember, on-line advertising used to be very graphical and eye-candy in nature. Now, with PPC advertising, it has become text-based and bland. But, it still works and has been very profitable for Google, Yahoo! and others as well as the users who purchase the advertising. This allows any Dick or Sallie to create an Ad Campaign with little to no up-front cost. Thus, it reaches more users because it is so much more accessible. I think Google has the potential to perform a similar transformation to radio advertising. Rather than having 20 & 30 second ads that require studio production, Google may sell 5 & 10 second slots. These short time slots can be filled with ‘bland’ ads that are generated from “Text To Speech” Engines, based on text defined by the user/purchaser. That makes it automated and accessible to more people, just like PPC. As an example, visit AT&T Labs, copy & paste this text –>visit google dot com for all your advertising needs<– and listen. True, it’s not as “pretty” as typical radio ads, but neither are PPC ads…this gets the point across, simply and easily!

You put these concepts together and you’ve got one major step in transforming radio advertising and making it more accessible and viable for a larger group of businesses! Kudos, Google! I can’t wait until I can purchase my first radio ad created with a Text To Speech engine that will be targeted to my audience!