Google shows off videos in text ads

Google showed off video trailers inside text ads for financial analysts Wednesday.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Google sought to remind financial analysts Wednesday that despite all the attention it devotes to projects like Google Apps, staying on top of search and search advertising is what really matters.

The first in a series of investor Webcasts was held Wednesday by Google CFO Patrick Pichette and several other executives, and while the company did not unearth any ground-breaking shifts in strategy or new products, it did cast a spotlight on some recent improvements that the company believes have enhanced the search experience. Perhaps the most notable was the recent addition of video ads directly below text ads on the top or right-hand side of the search results page, which can be played directly on that page.

This started to emerge for some users last week according to ReelSEO, but Google is now offering advertisers a chance to insert a video trailer into their text ads. "In many cases, the best information is video," said Nick Fox, business product management director on Google's AdWords team.

For example, Fox demonstrated how Electronic Arts is using a video trailer inside an ad for the new Tiger Woods video game. The result is a marriage of the text ad format that Google has used to rise into a dominant Internet company with the display ad style that others, such as Yahoo, are hoping to finally make a success.

"Google hasn't made many changes to its text ad format and now sees this as a big opportunity," wrote J.P. Morgan's Imran Khan in a research note distributed after the Webcast. It can charge either by the click through to the advertiser's Web site or by the play of the video, therefore adding a revenue stream that didn't exist before.

[Chapmaniac]

Let's just hope this isn't the beginning of the "MSN-ing" of Google...

[explodingzebras]

Surely that means they are not actually text ads anymore?

[rklrkl]

Let's hope they use Flash, so I can block them with Flashblock and never see them! I might have been more impressed if they'd used something like "aalib" (a library that "text-ifies" videos - think of the old ASCII art print-outs). As it stands and as someone just commented, the ads are indeed now video ads with all the encumbent problems (often need a plug-in, a lot of bandwidth, annoying sounds and animations etc.) that text ads were supposed to solve.

This isn't a step forward in any logical way for Google ads - it'll just encourage the use of Adblock Plus and/or Flashblock, which people generally didn't do for Google's text ads.

[redmarine]

Hopefully more people will learn that AdBlock and FlashBlock are the way to go.

[magicmaster]

I won't mind Google showing videos in text ads, but the videos should only be activated when the users click on it. Playing it automatically, and you will "turn off" the users, and users will "turn off" your ad by any means possible.

[dodgeballdan]

From my experience with using the video's on Google, they are all user initiated. You must expand the video and then click to play it so "auto-play" should not be a concern currently.

[66epp2]

Google Ad Sense Message Boards Fraud
Google Ad Sense is when a web site owner opens an account with Google to place advertisement on their web site. When a person clicks this advertisement, the web site owner gets an average commission of .45 cents. A web site that gets a lot of traffic, they can easily make $150,000 per month.
There are message boards claiming to be informing the public about scams being done by companies or individuals. These web sites have individuals working for them for the sole purpose of targeting companies or individuals in order to generate traffic to the web site. This method is artificially generating traffic to the web site, this is FRAUD as outlined by Google. The higher the traffic, the higher the percentage of individuals that will click onto the Google advertisements.
Additionally, Individuals post copy right information about a company on these types of web sites; this is against the policy of the Google Ad Sense program.
If you believe that you are being targeted by individuals on a particular web site; simply click the Ads by Google in the bottom right hand corner of the advertisement on the web site. You will be taken to a Google page, click onto: Report a policy violation regarding the site or ads you just saw.
File a report and the Google Fraud Department will investigate.

[t8]

All those Adblocker free riders have no sense of how business works. They think that no revenue for web sites will sustain a great (or todays) Web experience. It will not. Thankfully these free riders are a minority and they are not worth anything to anyone.

Also, these videos will most likely be text links that are clicked. Not a video that plays when the page loads.

It would also be good if there was a way to block a web site from those who have adblock. That would be fair.