San Francisco — In an attempt to lure entertainment business that has so far remained aloof from search advertising, and to win over entertainment advertising dollars, search engine giant Google has teamed up with self-service video creation company “SpotMixer” to offer small and medium sized businesses a chance to win $25,000 worth of free national TV advertising for the “TV for All” video contest on YouTube.
With the passing of time, “Text ads,” which has become a synonym with search advertising industry, lacks much of an attraction as a medium for promoting a movie but Google is trying out a new search ad format to tap into this potentially huge market.
Google AdWords users will now have a new alternative for creating in-stream video advertising now that One True Media’s SpotMixer’s do-it-yourself online video ad technology has been integrated within AdWords’ In-Stream Video advertisers, an arrangement that allows users to make videos that can run over the Google Content Network or on YouTube.
The TV for All competition begins today and will last till October 5. Winners will be announced on October 30. The contest is open to any business with 300 or fewer employees.
Businesses can create their own video ad or use SpotMixer’s free video ad creation platform and submit it to YouTube.
“This will allow advertisers to get even stronger performance from video advertising,” said Baljeet Singh, Google product manager for video monetization, in a statement.
Searches corresponding to movies, games, music or celebrities make up a large part of the queries on Google, but so far this has not transformed into a proportional amount of advertising from this type of companies. In a move to change that, the Internet giant is now experimenting with video inside the search ads, currently partnering with a small number of advertisers like Miramax, Electronic Games and Discovery Channel, according to AdAge.
The new alliance, officially being announced today, allows AdWords users to create 15- or 30-second in-stream video ads using SpotMixer’s do-it-yourself ad creation tool. Videos can be distributed on YouTube or Google’s Content Network as pre-, mid- or post-roll ads.
AdAge’s Michael Learmonth informs that Electronic Arts has already acquired the specialized ads to push its “Need for Speed” video game, while film studio Miramax has used them to promote “Extract.”
The ads will be analyzed by a panel of judges made up of entrepreneurs, including Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, advertising professionals, and TV celebrities. The judges will choose finalist by mid-October. Those videos will appear in a finalist’s section of the contest, where YouTube users can vote for their favorite ads.
The top three videos will receive $25,000 in free national advertising through Google TV Ads.
“The concept behind our “TV for All” contest is that TV advertising can be easy and affordable for any business,” said Kathleen Farley, SpotMixer’s Vice President of Product Marketing.
“With SpotMixer and Google TV Ads, even a small business can advertise like a big brand. Businesses of all types will be amazed at just how easy it is to create a professional ad. With an opportunity to win $25,000 in TV advertising through Google TV Ads, we expect a lot of businesses curious about DIY TV advertising to give it a try,” Farley said.
The alliance with Google is not the first for Redwood City, Ca.-based One True Media, a company founded four years ago. The company earlier teamed up with Google TV Ads in January, its SpotMixer platform automatically grabs text from AdWords ads and inserts it into tailored 15- to 30-second-long video ads within the user’s AdWords account. Users can customize the videos by adding photos, video, and voice-overs. The conversions are done dynamically, with templates and content being changed to avoid identical videos.
There will be no charge for using the the video platform on AdWords, but those who want SpotMixer to add a professional voice-over will be assessed service fees starting at $50, said Farley.
This is the latest sign that Google is desperately moving away from only offering standard search text ads to advertisers. In June, the company started testing a format that allowed product sellers to include an image in their text ads (Advertisers also only pay when someone buys a product from their site, instead of when someone clicks on an ad). Learmonth writes that entertainment companies are not big search advertisers, so there may be a sizable revenue opportunity here for Google.
According to eMarketer, US spending on Internet video ads is expected to reach $2.1. billion by 2011 and $4.1 billion in 2013. It is currently the fastest-growing segment of online display ads.