14 DAY TRIAL // Google is a huge company with interests in a large number of markets. It’s products range from photo-sharing tools to operating system, yet all of them are mostly powered by one thing, advertising. Google does make a lot of money from ads, it dominates the search ad market and is a very strong player overall, and that doesn’t look like it’s going to change any time soon, but its dependency on them may be the company’s weak point.
Google is working on finding alternative revenue streams, the enterprise market is one example, but in the meantime, it’s also working on new ad types to help it stay ahead in the increasingly competitive market. An idea that has been touted and on which Google is already working, are interactive video ads.
These ads are the next step in online advertising, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt says, that this type of ads will be wildly used and will enable users to actually engage with them in ways that are not possible with existing ads. The video ads will appear anywhere on a page and users will be able to comment on the video and on the ad.
What’s more, the ads will be updated in real-time. Almost all of the ads today are static, they may be customized to target specific users, but their content stays the same. Having an ad that can be adjusted on-the-fly could prove a lot more interesting to the user which should translate into better ad performance and bigger revenue for Google.
Google says this type of ads is coming, though there is no precise time frame. The CEO was present at the Allen & Co.'s Sun Valley conference where he made these comments, according to the Wall Street Journal. Schmidt also talked about cutting down on the number of ad formats available as they can be confusing especially for small advertisers.