Google Adsense Video Units
Friday, June 13th, 2008
I read an article on www.adage.com a while ago by the editor in chief of www.searchengineland.com, Danny Sullivan. He described a revolutionary change in the way Google treats video clips in search results. He said, Google video ads will not only appear in YouTube clips and on pages that carry Google AdSense units, but also in Google’s sacred search results as well.
Since I read that article, Google Adsense Video Units have been rolled out in the USA, the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, Netherlands, Poland, New Zealand and Japan.
I haven’t actually come across one yet but as Adwords advertisers start to pick up on the opportunities video ads bring, I’ll be interested to see what impact this has on the way they communicate their message. Like Mr Sullivan rightly pointed out, “…AdWords advertisers have had to shoehorn their messages into a 70-character limit. Well, if a picture’s worth a 1,000 words, moving-picture ads will let advertisers blow through the haiku-like restriction.”
So perhaps, any day now, we’re going to be swamped by enquiries from companies who want their products brought to life with animation and swooshy graphics specifically for use in Google Adsense Video Units. Or perhaps there’ll be a surge in companies buying digital video cameras and cheap video editing software. One thing that’s certain is that some will be shockingly bad and some will be brilliantly slick, and we’ll enjoy them all.
