Google Moving Strongly Into Radio Advertising 54
AvgGatsby writes to let us know about Google's move into radio. The company is hiring "scores" of radio sales people in major markets and is offering them 50% above prevailing salaries. From the article: "Google spokesman Michael Mayzel said this week that the company will begin a public test of Google Audio Ads by the end of the year. Advertisers will be able to go online and sign up for targeted radio ads using the same AdWords system they use to buy Web search ads. It made a clear move into radio in January when it agreed to pay more than $1 billion, depending on performance, for dMarc Broadcasting Inc., which connects advertisers to radio stations through an automated advertising system. It's all part of what Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has said is an investment in radio advertising that could grow over time to include up to 1,000 Google employees — not just in ad sales, but also in engineering and operations."
Wow... some competition for ClearChannel?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Luckily, I don't listen to radio (Score:3, Interesting)
Ads will rot your brain!
Speech recognition software? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Skynet (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, hate to nitpick here, but they are most certainly not an ad agency. I work in advertising (at an ad agency) and what Google has become (and has been for most of its life) is a media property with a sales force. Just like ClearChannel et. al.
And for anybody who thinks "ooo, they're paying 50% above prevailing salaries!" you need to gain a basic understanding of how this industry works. Their sales force gets a commission. Anybody in ad sales worth their salt is going to wait and see how in-demand this radio venture of theirs is before they jump ship because frankly, media reps get a crappy salary. The money is really made in the commission. So if this bombs, yeah, they might be making a bit more base from their salary, but they'll be screwed from commission.
Of course, I'm sure that won't stop all of the sexy sexy media girls (fortunately a very true industry stereotype) from trying to work there. Can't wait to do business with them!
Actually, there was a Google Ad Sales office directly below mine in Chicago here before it closed, and they had some very cute girls working there....but I have to tell you that the Google backpacks don't look as sexy on them as you think they would.
Can Google do radio better? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there something that I'm missing that Google can really ad to the equation here? Or is this yet another example of a great company moving away from a core competency and expanding towards just being mediocre?