Google introduces rich media-friendly Gadget Ads

Google Inc. this week introduced Gadget Ads that can incorporate such rich media features as video, Flash animation, Ajax mouse-over text and interactivity to the ads Google presents across thousands of web sites. Users can download ads to their home pages or favorite social network sites.

Google has been testing the new ad format with more than 50 advertisers over the past few months and this week invited other Google advertisers to take part in an “extended beta” test of the concept.

Among the ads Google presented as an example is one for the Honda Civic automobile that is tied to a tour by rock bank Fall Out Boy. The ad contains several tabs that let users see backstage video, updated tour information and e-mail a question to the band.

An ad by computer chip manufacturer Intel Corp. featured a simple video game in which players use keyboard arrow keys to maneuver laptop icons so they keep software icons in the air. In the background, marketing messages appear touting Intel’s products. And there is also a link to the Intel home page.

“Overall, we had good results. It’s definitely something we want to move forward with,” says Stephanie Dillard, global marketing manager at Intel. She says Intel is working on another Gadget ad for the fourth quarter.

Intel took advantage of the option of allowing users to download the ad to their desktops or favorite social networking site, and Dillard says “there were enough downloads that we do see the opportunity.” She would not provide details, but did say that Intel will seek ways to make the gadget valuable enough the more consumers will want to download it.

Google offers advertisers the option of paying per click or per impression. But once the ad is downloaded Google will continue to serve the ad, including any video, to the user for no additional fee. Ad networks typically have charged each time an ad was served to a consumer, Dillard says. She says Google also provides at no charge reports on how much time individuals spend with ads, which tabs they click on and whether they click on the Intel home page link.

The technology involved in Google Gadget Ads is not new—there has been video in online ads before, for instance—says Greg Sterling, a consultant who specializes in online advertising. But by combining the technology, free services and Google’s extensive distribution network Google has “put together a product that’s pretty compelling,” Sterling says.

From the Google perspective, Gadget Ads fits with the trend toward “the end user taking pieces of content from all over the web and reassembling them wherever they’re most comfortable,” whether that’s their desktops or a page on a social networking site like Facebook of MySpace, says Christian Oestlien, business product manager at Google. For advertisers, he says, Gadget Ads “is less about funneling people to your site and more about funneling your site to wherever the end user is.”

Oestlien emphasizes that Google is still working with advertisers to learn how best to create and utilize all the rich media features that can be incorporated into a Gadget ad. One feature being tested would allow a consumer to add products to a shopping cart within a Gadget Ad, then click on a link to the advertiser’s e-commerce site to complete the purchase.

Google serves Gadget Ads to the thousands of web sites in its advertising network, which together reach 80% of the global online population, the company says. The Gadget Ads do not appear on search results pages.