June 28, 2011

By James Wood

Google has made its fortune by selling targeted ads. Most people know Google as the search engine company, but they make no money by offering searches. Rather it’s the ads that appear alongside search results that generate income for Google. It’s a brilliant system that takes advantage of the new world of Internet technology.

Prior to the Internet, advertising was focused on getting eyes. The more people who watched a TV show or subscribed to a magazine, the more eyes would see the advertisements and the more valuable the ads are. It’s a game of percentages. Assume that most of the people seeing the ads aren’t interested. Adjust for the target demographic of the show or magazine. Create the highest chance that the ad will match up with people who are interested in the product. Once the percentages are set then it’s a game of getting eyeballs on the ads to drive more customer action.

Google realized that people searching are giving clues to what they want, which helps to reduce guesswork involved in targeting an advertisement. But then they did something revolutionary, they stopped charging for the number of eyes to see the ad and started charging for the number of times an ad got clicked by an interested customer. The terminology is now about the cost-per-click for different ads that Google hosts. The advertisers are happier because they’re paying only for the most interested potential customers. Google is happy because its ad revenue continues to grow.

The transformation that’s happened in the space of private media and advertising is now moving to the public space. Magazines and TV shows are similar to billboards in public areas. The theory is the same. Get eyes on the ad and hope that enough people in that space will be interested. But technology has moved as far beyond a simple billboard as a Google search is beyond a magazine.

Planar’s Clarity™ Matrix Display Wall is made up of high definition, high quality, durable, efficient and reliable displays. The matrix design allows as many screens as you can imagine in any configuration that you can conceive. And, partnering with industry leaders like Mtek Kiosk, Planar can create the real-world equivalent of Google-style ads. Let people select what they want from a touch screen menu on a six foot tall Clarity Matrix display. Then when the suggestions come up for advertisers, the eyes on the ad are interested and motivated. An initial investment in better technology can yield enormous results when every ad displayed is more valuable to customers and to advertising clients.