Since launching in 2007, Google TV Ads has provided advertisers a smart, measurable way to run national TV campaigns, while at the same time helping our partners (including networks, cable and satellite operators) work towards maximizing revenue from their inventory.  Over the past year, we’ve seen a 6-fold increase in the number of ads aired per day as our household reach across cable and satellite operators has tripled.  Today we’re pleased to continue this momentum, to help both advertisers and partners get the most from TV advertising.

New partner - welcome Cox Media

Cox Media, the advertising division of Cox Communications, the third largest cable operator in the US with more than 6 million total customers, has entered into a strategic partnership with Google TV Ads, adding their inventory to our national TV buying network.  Cox becomes the first major cable industry partner to deploy Google’s next-generation advertising management solution, a major update to the TV Ads platform.

As a result of this partnership, advertisers who use Google TV Ads will have access to inventory on over 75 networks across Cox's channel line up.  Cox Media is available in many cities across the country.

Building upon previously announced inventory deals with DIRECTV, Verizon FiOS, and Viamedia, Google TV Ads has nearly tripled its operator household reach since the start of 2011, to a total of 42 million households nationwide.

For Cox Media, this partnership will deliver new national TV advertisers, particularly those focused on high levels of measurement and accountability in their TV advertising, similar to how they use Google's online advertising products.

Mike Zeigler, Cox Media’s Vice President of Operations and Field Management, told us: “The media industry is changing rapidly.  Our new partnership with Google TV Ads allows us to reach new market segments through a highly automated and efficient distribution platform.  We are pleased to be part of bringing new television opportunities to Google advertisers.”

New ad management solution

As the TV landscape has evolved from a few to hundreds of networks, audience attention has fragmented, making the process of reaching one large audience more challenging.  At the same time, TV ad inventory is split between a number of players - national networks, regional affiliates, cable, and satellite operators. As a result, each has its own slices of inventory to sell - divided across many shows, in disparate regions, on lots of channels, at various times of the day. On its own, each slice may not have a large number of viewers, or enable a major advertiser to reach a nationwide audience.  And it’s time consuming to buy and sell each slice individually.

To solve this problem, Google TV Ads is announcing an update to its service that enables operators to easily opt-in and contribute these narrow slices into the Google TV Ads national  inventory pool.  As thousands of these slices are aggregated, this pool represents a large national audience that marketers can then customize to their audience goals.

Cox is the first major cable operator to choose this new Google TV Ads ad management solution, and moving forward we will be integrating with new partners, including Suddenlink Communications, which reaches 1.2M households.

The new solution aims to deliver higher returns for our operators while integrating with existing industry technology, streamlining time-consuming inventory management tasks such as ordering, trafficking and reporting.

Bendbroadband, a Bend, Oregon-based cable company, was the first to trial this new platform, starting in May 2011.  Tim Olson, General Manager of Ad Sales for Zolo Media, a division of Bendbroadband, told us: “Google TV Ads generates more revenue, uses our inventory more efficiently and is overall easier to work with...we’re generating 4-5 times the revenue we used to.”

While we’ve come far in 2011, going forward we’ll keep working to help our partners maximize their advertising revenues.  Our advertisers will be happy to know we’ll also be adding more inventory to our system by expanding our relationship with Cox Media and establishing partnerships with additional operators beginning with Suddenlink Communications.  At the same time, Google TV Ads will continue to provide the same level of precision, flexibility and measurability that our advertisers have come to rely on.

You can find out more about Google TV Ads at google.com/tvads.

Posted by Mark Piesanen, Director of Strategic Partner Development, Google TV Ads

       Since announcing our inventory partnership with DIRECTV in August 2010, Google TV Ads has offered advertisers the ability to place their TV spots on a broad selection of national inventory across 11 its networks.  Today we are pleased to share that we have grown our DIRECTV reach to include five new networks.  Now when you plan your TV campaign with Google TV Ads, you will have more inventory from the following networks with which to target your audience on:

• FOX Soccer Channel: America's premier destination for the world's game, FOX Soccer Channel offers unprecedented coverage of live and premier world-class soccer, news and original shows throughout the year.
• Gospel Music Channel: The only network with a truly non-controversial programming slate of movies, dramas, comedies and music, Gospel Music Channel is America's favorite channel for uplifting entertainment.
• Logo: Appealing to a broad range of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender viewers and their friends and family, Logo features a vast library of major film titles, documentaries, and quality original shows and specials.
• RFD-TV: Devoted to rural issues, concerns, and interests, much of the programming of RFD-TV is concerned with the culture of farming and agriculture.
• TV Games: The leading horse racing television network in the U.S

       Adding these networks expands our already strong reach on DIRECTV, which includes networks such as the TV Guide Network, Fox Business Network, Current TV, and more. Along with our previously announced operator partners including Dish Network, Verizon FiOS, and ViaMedia, Google TV Ads now offers the ability to reach up to 35M households across the US.

For more information on how to get started with Google TV Ads, visit www.google.com/tvads today.

Posted by Sanjeev Das, Software Engineer, Google TV Ads

*Network descriptions sourced from the Cable Advertising Bureau

Google TV Ads’ audience targeting tool brings together numerous data sources to enable advanced targeting on TV. The merging of clustering models like Nielsen's PRIZM household segments with anonymized Equifax and set-top box data allows you to target multi-dimensional audiences like women ages 18-24 who love photography. Now we’re adding yet another data set to make that experience even richer -- P$YCLE segmentation.

P$YCLE is a market segmentation system from the Nielsen Company that marketers use to understand and target households by financial behavior and wealth. P$YCLE groups households into 58 unique segments based on income-generating assets, spending habits, investment behavior, and various financial and demographic characteristics.

Sample P$YCLE segments include:

• Feathered Nests – There's money tucked away in Feathered Nests, a collection of middle-aged families with high incomes and above-average investable assets. A mix of college-educated Whites and Asians, these 35- to 54-year-olds typically hold management jobs and have begun filling their retirement accounts with mutual funds, stocks, bonds, and CDs. They're also a strong credit market, often carrying jumbo mortgages and home equity lines of credit. Insurance omnivores, they own annuities, term and whole life, disability coverage, and auto insurance for their multiple cars. And they enjoy good-life pursuits, like golfing and sailing, boutique shopping for children's toys and collectibles, and tuning their high-end TVs to ice hockey matches and public broadcasting programs. For investment tips, they read a variety of business magazines.

• Online Living – No segment scores higher for using Internet banking than Online Living. This group of mostly 25- to 44-year-old singles, couples, and families ranks at the top for stock trading and bill paying, as well as buying at retail websites. Many of these web-surfers live in suburban sprawl areas, own their homes and have upscale incomes, but they have only modest levels of income-producing assets and are still paying off student and personal loans.

To get started, simply select a P$YCLE segment in the Google TV Ads interface. Google will create a custom list of cable networks, dayparts, and programs that are popular with your target audience.

Finding your target audience on TV has never been easier and we’re thrilled to continue to explore the powerful ways to connect technology, data, and television.

Posted by Jody Shapiro, Product Manager for Google TV Ads

2011 is proving to be a big year for video, both online and offline. In fact, TV viewing in the US has held steady at an average of 5 hours per day while online video usage surged by 45% this year to over 4 hours per month.* Video consumption is positioned to only continue growing as consumers crave more information and entertainment across numerous devices.

Naturally, this trend increases the importance of video for businesses, but we know that getting started with video advertising can be a formidable challenge. First and foremost, how do you create a compelling and effective video ad on a reasonable budget?

That’s why we’re excited to announce Google’s extended partnership with SpotMixer which allows Google AdWords and TV Ads customers to create custom ads absolutely free of charge. Your ads can be aired across TV and online video sites as many or as few times as you wish. This offer represents our increased commitment to advertisers who want to leverage video to increase brand awareness and ROI.

Integrated directly into Google AdWords, SpotMixer provides a simple and powerful ad creation tool that takes your existing AdWords campaigns and converts text ads into a tailored video or TV ad. From there, select from a variety of professional templates which set the pacing, transitions, effects and design of the ad. SpotMixer also provides a full gallery of stock images, videos and music in addition to allowing the use of your own photos, text, and logos.

Viola, you now have a custom ad for use across Google TV Ads and Google’s Display Network including YouTube.

Already have a TV or video ad? Upload it directly into SpotMixer to edit the entire ad or just select parts to improve aesthetics and effectiveness. Once you’re done, SpotMixer will provide the correctly timed formatted file to download onto your computer then upload directly into your Google TV Ads or AdWords ad library.

Imagine the power of this free tool which allows 100% of your budget to go straight to your media plan rather than ad creative.

Test different calls to action
•  Customize different ads for your various target segments (for example, customize one ad version for female consumers and another for male)
• Get specific in your tracking -- build ads with different phone numbers and tracking URLs to test effectiveness of different media placements
• Run seasonal ads throughout the year

Create integrated campaigns
• Create :15 and :30 versions of your ad to run on TV and online
• Try bookending with two :15 seconds ads

The possibilities are only as limited as your imagination and business goals. Find SpotMixer in your AdWords account in two ways:
Via Google TV Ads campaign page -- select ‘New Ad’ and click on the link to SpotMixer
Via Google AdWords -- select ‘New Ad’ and access SpotMixer via the Video and Audio section of Display Ad Builder.

2011 promises to be an exciting year for video advertising and along with our partners at SpotMixer, we hope these tools put you on the path to success.

*Nielsen Three Screens Report, Q1 2010 and Nielsen Overall Online Video Usage (U.S.), January 2011


Post by Neha Mandal, Product Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Google expands operator footprint in the start of 2011 with 18 cable providers, 68 networks, and 2M additional homes

We’re excited to start off 2011 with a strategic agreement that continues to grow the reach of Google TV Ads. Our newest inventory partner, Viamedia, is a provider of advertising sales services to partners including 18 of the top 30 cable operators in the US. By partnering with Viamedia, Google adds 2 million homes to the TV Ads system on 68 popular cable networks across 18 cable operators.

This continued growth of our platform means 35 million cable, satellite, and telco homes in the US are now integrated into Google TV Ads. Our platform now offers 1,200 GRPs and 1.5 billion available impressions each week for advertisers to target through one simple interface.

Both Viamedia and Google are forward-looking in our approach to television advertising, making this a natural collaboration. We are thrilled to to welcome our new partners and offer our advertisers greater reach across the television universe.

Posted by Mark Piesanen, Strategic Partner Development for Google TV Ads

Advertisers will soon receive even more accurate ad performance and viewership data for Google TV Ads campaigns aired on DIRECTV. We’ve signed an agreement with Kantar Media, a leading audience measurement and research firm, to incorporate set-top-box data collected from 100,000 DIRECTV subscribers as part of Kantar Media’s DIRECTView™ service.

Earlier this year, we announced a partnership with DIRECTV which will bring advertising inventory across a broad selection of its networks to our system in 2011. By integrating Kantar’s DIRECTV viewership data into our system, we’ll be able to provide much more robust performance data for spots aired on DIRECTV. For advertisers, this means more accurate impression counts and viewership metrics leading to increased efficiency of your TV campaigns. 

We hope to integrate this new data into our system in early 2011. To learn more about how Google TV Ads can help you achieve your marketing goals, please visit our website.

Post by Vinay Bhargava, Strategic Partnership Development for Google TV Ads

With the French Open coming to an exciting close and Wimbledon just around the corner, it's certainly a busy time for our newest partners, Tennis Channel who are in the center of the action. We were lucky enough to grab a few minutes with Gary Herman, Senior Vice President of Ad Sales for Tennis Channel who gave us the scoop on Tennis Channel's programming, core audience, and why partnering with Google has been a good move.


Q: Why is a partnership with Google TV Ads strategic for Tennis Channel?


Gary: Google's TV ads platform creates a marketplace for online advertisers who might not have considered buying television before. No other online company has the breadth of advertisers, resources and credibility that Google brings to the table. Google's auction-based platform is a new way of buying media and we like the idea of staying ahead of the curve.


Q: What are some of the most exciting programs and content that advertisers can look forward to targeting on Tennis Channel?


Gary: Tennis Channel produces and airs more live, world class tennis tournaments than any other cable or broadcast channel in the US. Advertisers buying through Google TV Ads will have plenty of access to all this great content including the opportunity to buy ads during each of the tennis Grand Slams: The Australian Open (January), French Open, (May/June), Wimbledon prime time (June/July) and the US Open (September).


Q: Can you give us an overview of Tennis Channel's core audience?


Gary: Tennis Channel viewers represent the sweet spot of affluent customers. Our audience is balanced between men (57%) and women (43%), young people (two-thirds are under 50 and active) and of course tennis lovers (76% play tennis regularly).


According to the most recent Mendelsohn 2009 Affluent Survey, our average viewers' household income is $233k, the highest of any network featured in the study, and average home values are over $549k -- second only to Bloomberg Television. Our viewers love to travel, dine out, shop at high-end retailers, make online purchases and are early technology adopters.


Q: Given that your audience is amongst the higher end in television, what kinds of advertisers would Tennis Channel appeal to most?

Gary: Our network is ideal for advertisers targeting affluent men and women consumers in a programming environment that is family friendly with minimal commercial skipping and limited commercial clutter. Advertisers find value in knowing that their brand messages are seen by consumers with the disposable income to make purchases even in today's challenging economic times. Some of our key advertisers represent categories such as luxury cars, financial services, insurance, travel, credit cards, technology, pharmaceuticals, and health and beauty.


Q: Are you seeing a change in the way the TV industry is thinking about content, distribution and advertising? How has Tennis Channel innovated in these areas?


Gary: We like being in the sports programming business with television as the main screen; tennis looks great on a 42" high definition screen. The challenge for programmers and advertisers from our point of view, is staying relevant with audiences in a world where the average person receives over 5,000 branded messages per day and can get content on so many devices with different screen sized at any time of day. We know that tennis is an important part of our viewers' lives, and providing them with 24/7 tennis programming by default makes Tennis Channel extremely relevant to them. The clear benefit to our advertisers is that our viewers are more likely to be receptive to ad messages when those messages are aired during their favorite sports programming.


Q: What is something that people might find surprising about Tennis Channel, its content and/or its audience?


Gary: Many people are surprised to hear that there are as many tennis players today as golfers -- tennis is back in a big way and it's catching on with fans of all ages. As for our channel, eyebrows raise when fans realize that Tennis Channel not only airs match play, but we actually produce hundreds and hundreds of hours of live tennis from all over the world including ESPN2's coverage of the US Open Summer Series. There is never a dull moment in tennis, and we're there to catch it all.


Posted by Hana Chang, Strategic Partner Development Manager for Google TV Ads

We're happy to announce Tennis Channel as Google TV Ads' newest partner. The network is the premiere destination on TV for all things tennis, bringing a lot of value to advertisers, as it attracts a highly affluent audience across 28M homes and carries all major tournaments and grand slams, sometimes exclusively. 


Advertisers can log into Google TV Ads today to target dayparts and programs on Tennis Channel, including premiere spots during major tournaments such as the upcoming French and US Opens. During tournaments, Tennis Channel opens up network access to millions of homes, reaching up to 50M homes during these times! 


We hope our advertisers are as excited as we are to access even more targeted audience reach through our growing  platform. 

Posted by Neha Mandal, Product Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads 

For the past three years, DISH Network has been one of Google's strongest partners in the TV advertising space. Back in 2007, DISH embraced our emerging TV ads platform by signing on as our first partner and has since been an innovative thought leader with Google throughout the growth of this business. 


We're happy to announce that we've renewed and strengthened our partnership with DISH Network and will continue to offer great inventory across over 95 networks on DISH. Through Google's TV Ads platform, advertisers can continue targeting audiences across networks like Animal Planet, CNN, MSNBC, NFL Network, TBS, USA and over 90 others. Stay on the lookout for more new features and targeting options coming soon to our platform!



Posted by Neha Mandal, Product Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads