Google’s newspaper ad program a hit
I missed this one due to an excess of eggnog, but the Washington Post says that Google’s newspaper advertising program — which was launched in November, when I wrote about it here — is going much better than the search engine-cum-advertising company thought it would, and so it is expanding it.
According to the Post story, by a tech writer with one of my favourite names (Sara Kehaulani Goo), in just three weeks of the program, Google sold out all the newspaper ad inventory it had expected to sell over a period of three months. The company says it plans to expand the program, which was launched with 100 advertisers and 66 newspapers.
Newspaper executives seem to see it as a worthwhile thing, but something like the Triple A baseball league is to the majors — a good place to start, but not somewhere to stay forever. Says one New York Times exec:
We think it’s a wonderful way to introduce advertisers to the New York Times and print overall… we’d look to up-sell and migrate those [smaller advertisers] to bigger programs and better positions [in the paper] and move them out of the Google system.
Although there is bound to be some resistance from newspapers to the idea of giving some of their business to Google to manage (not to mention some resistance from ad-buying agencies), it seems like a total no-brainer to me. Is running an advertising camapign or maximizing inventory a newspaper’s core competency or purpose? No.
I would argue that handling advertising is merely a necessary evil that newspapers engage in to help pay for the journalism. If someone else can do it better — or even as well — then why not let them? As Don Dodge says in his post, it’s about “an efficient advertising system that satisfies advertisers, content providers, and consumers.” Greg Sterling calls it a “marriage of necessity.” He’s right. Google needs to expand, and newspapers need help.
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(On Dec 28th, 2006 at 12:12 pm)
“I would argue that handling advertising is merely a necessary evil that newspapers engage in to help pay for the journalism.”
Mathew, I believe you have it backwards. For-profit newspapers exist to sell copies and advertising, journalism is one mechanism they use to sell copies and and advertising. The focus of every employee of the for-profit paper should be to sell more copies and sell more advertising, journalists accomplish this by providing the most appropriate type of stories and writing, be it the most accurate, most up to date, most sensational, or whatever the thrust of the paper is.
That said, Google paper advertising should be embraced by the papers as another revenue stream - not ‘minor league’, just a difference service with a somewhat different value proposition.
Papers should be very good at maximizing distribution, selling adds, and producing copy, these are their core competencies. Partners, channel sales, etc, can all be part of the puzzle.
If strong, accurate, well constructed journalism is job number one, then go work for the state (non-profit) media or keep on blogging!
John
(On Dec 28th, 2006 at 12:21 pm)
John, I think (not surprisingly, perhaps) that you are wrong. Newspapers do not exist to sell advertising, nor is journalism a mechanism to sell advertising, and I think any newspaper that views its business in that way is making a huge mistake and will likely not last long, nor make much money. Content, whether accurate or sensationalist, is what drives the business — that is, sells more copies — and that helps bring in advertising that in turn pays for the trucks, satellites, my expense account, etc.