Google makes major foray into TV ads business

3 Dec 2008

Google has signed a strategic agreement with the Hallmark Channel to offer advertisers access to family-friendly programmes through the Google TV Ads programme.

Advertisers will be able to use the Google TV Ads programme to place ads on both the Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel.

Using the Google TV Ads platform, advertisers, starting in early 2009, will be able to access both networks’ national audiences and receive viewership data at an unprecedented scale. Google TV Ads advertisers – many of them new to the television medium – can then better understand what consumers are responding to and make real-time adjustments to their campaigns.

With Google’s targeting tools and auction-based pricing system, advertisers can find the right context and audience for their advertising message, only pay for impressions delivered to their ads and receive digital reporting within 24 hours.

The Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel join Google TV Ads’ growing list of inventory partners, which also includes six networks from the NBC Universal family – Sci Fi, Oxygen, MSNBC, CNBC, Sleuth, and Chiller—along with Bloomberg Television and 96 networks through DISH Network.

“Hallmark Channel’s strong family-friendly brand and programming attracts an important viewer demographic that Google TV Ads’ advertisers can now access,” said John Saroff, manager of Strategic Partner Development for Google TV Ads.

“Combined with our platform’s measurement technology, this collaboration signifies an important step towards making television advertising more accountable for advertisers and more relevant for viewers,” Saroff said.

By John Kennedy

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com