14 DAY TRIAL // Google has been known for its quirky ways and has surprised most people with its unique approach to any problem. If it's the company's way of doing business, giving away most stuff and making money from ads, or the way it approaches innovation, developing many of its products as open-source projects, Google has rarely followed traditional paths.
This couldn't be more true when it comes to marketing, something it should know a thing or two about, as Google has very rarely advertised the company or a product using traditional avenues, meaning old media, and it doesn't do too much online advertising either.
Now, it looks like Google has been buying up, or at least using, its own ad space not to promote a product but to promote its new position on censorship in China. The Wall Street Journal reports that certain searches on Google.com now show ads linking to last week's blog post on the issue.
Searches on the English-language version of the site relating to Google and China, the WSJ exemplifies with “Google Leaves China,” or “Google vs. Baidu,” now show an ad from Google on top of the results titled “Google and China” and saying "read our public response to recent security issues on the Google blog."
It isn't the first time that Google promotes a product on its online proprieties, plugs for Google Chrome and other new products are common, but the company usually creates a separate entry and doesn't take up ad space reserved to its advertising partners. This gives it more flexibility in its promotional tools, for example, an ad for its new Nexus One mobile phone ran on its homepage, one of the most valuable ad real-estate online something it wouldn't likely do for any advertiser regardless of the sum it paid. Using actual ad space, though, is rarer as Google leaves this for its paying customers. However, it has used the ad space on top of the search results to make its views on a matter known before, most recently when an offensive image of Michelle Obama showed up in the search results.