Google Plans TV Ads to Promote Chrome
If Microsoft and Intel can shell out the big bucks for TV ad spots, why not Google?
The search engine giant announced Friday that it will be running TV ads this weekend that advertise its Google Chrome browser.
The new ad was initially developed by the Google Japan team as an instructional video to demonstrate the simplicity of Chrome, Google saidThe video got some good feedback, so additional videos were created and Google eventually launched a Chrome Shorts section on YouTube featuring the videos.
"At the same time, we talked to our Google TV Ads team to see how we could show the video that our Japan team developed to a wider audience in a measurable way," Google wrote in a blog post"Using some of the results from our placement-targeted ads on the Google Content Network, we designed a Google TV Ads campaign which we hope will raise awareness of our browser, and also help us better understand how television can supplement our other online media campaigns."
The video, which features, the Chrome logo knocking blocks out of the way until they form a 3D rendering of the browser, can be seen on U.STV this weekend.
Chrome had 1.42 percent of the browser market share for April, according to data from Net ApplicationsThat is behind Internet Explorer with 66 percent, Firefox with 22.3 percent, and Safari with 8 percent--but ahead of Opera, which has 0.68 percent.
The ad is eye-catching, though it remains to be seen if the average, non-tech-savvy TV watcher will actually know what is being advertisedThe word "browser" is never said, nor is there any explanation of what it does, but perhaps the Google name recognition will spark peoples' interest.