14 DAY TRIAL // Google is hardly a typical media company despite making the vast majority of its revenue from advertising. In the past, it's had a rather tense relationship with old media companies and traditional advertising outlets. The strategy seems to have paid off, judging by its success so far, but in recent years Google is using a softer tone and trying to work more with the establishment. In its latest peace offering, the company has pledged an unspecified amount to an initiative by the Advertising Association in the UK to rebuild public trust in advertising and advertisers, not exactly an easy task.
Advertisers are right to be worried, a recent study commissioned by the association found that under 15 percent of adults in the UK trust advertising. Some might say that this is generally a good thing and a healthy amount of skepticism is more than welcomed in a world where everyone is trying to sell you something.
Now, apart from the effect this has on the efficiency of the campaigns themselves, advertisers are even more worried that this would lead to harsher government regulation, the last thing they want. To be fair, more often than not, strict rules create more problems than they solve and the public should be trusted to be able to make its own decisions and judgments, despite countless evidence that it can't.
In any case, the advertisers are determined to change people's perception but not by changing their ways, as a more naive member of the public might be inclined to think, but by a well funded foundation to lobby for the industry, or rather, as they put it, to be "the single contemporary authoritative objective source for the value, and pitfalls, of advertising, commercial and social communication." Because, if there's one word to describe advertising, it's 'objective'.
The foundation, with the working title “Front Foot,” is aiming to raise some £2 million to fund its initiatives and the Guardian reports that Google has pledged its support and opened its checkbook, for the move. It is unclear how much Google has contributed, it looks like something in the tens of thousands of pounds, but it's the gesture that's important in this case, rather than the actual sum. "Google relies on targeted, useful and trusted advertising to fund our search engine and all our products," Matt Brittin, Google's UK managing director, said. "We're very pleased to give our support to the Advertising Association and its work to research and improve confidence in advertising, and we look forward to working with the other members of the AA to ensure the UK remains a world leader in advertising."