Google’s Advertising Buffet
Google the Gatekeeper? Is Google trying to become the defacto middle-man for advertising placement across both new and traditional media? Will a prospective company be able to go to Google a year from now and order advertising placement as if at a buffet: “give me 2 radio spots, 1 tv hit, and a ¼ page in these three papers alongside these keywords and this text placement?”
The answers are probably no, but with increasing efforts to participate in placement of tradition media advertising – including in radio (through acquisition of dMarc), print (partnerships with newspapers), and television – alongside its dominant Internet search advertising services, these seem questions worth asking. It’s almost impossible not to speculate about them.
Today, adding fuel to that kind speculation, Google announced the acquisition of Adscape Media, a small one year old startup that was focusing on providing advertising for the video game industry (termed “in-game” advertising).
