Google Display Ad: “Watch This Space”
September 14th, 2010 by
In my opinion, Mad Men is one of the greatest shows on TV. Not just because it treats television as an art form, but because it also shows that advertising can be too. Print ads, to be specific. Well, with Google’s new “Watch This Space” campaign, they’re showing that display banner ads can be just as artful.
Many businesses are still wary to commit to display advertising and instead fall back on dated methods, such as print, radio, and television. Not to say these forms aren’t effective, I just don’t understand this fear of the digital world. With the advent of DVR and the failing print industry, I’d be more afraid of the more traditional means of advertising. Not only that, but it is so much easier to track progress through display ads than it is for other forms.
The ad is fantastic. Check it out.
This particular feature has been available in the Adwords platform for a few years now. Google likely treated that as a soft run and is now ready to repackage and really push it to gain more advertiser attention.
Display ads still lack the specific demographic targeting of Facebook, but the ability to display and manage ads on a multitude of sites while using one interface is a huge bonus. It gives busy business owners and marketing managers more flexibility and extends their reach. They can quickly and easily change what message is displayed depending on the type of site, whether it’s a men’s lifestyle site, a parenting site, or a teen magazine site, they have the ability to target the same or similar products to all of those demographic groups by packaging the ads in a different way for each.
