As we all waited patiently for the Third Quarter of the Super bowl on Sunday to see for the first time Google’s brand ad as part of their media strategy, it dawned on me an interesting thought about how Google really does marketing in this Web 2.0 world.

We all know that after the Superbowl on the following weekend starts the Vancouver2010 Olympics ( #VO2010, #Olympics, #Van2010). Even though there is a usage case  for people  to use search the web during the superbowl, it may not be as much high-density searching as we we are going to probably see globally during the Olympics.  Google’s ad campaign was considered Brand building, but given the fact that Google has over 70% of the search penetration in most countries around the world and on average more then 50%, most likely people at some point during the Olympics are most likely going to be coming to Google and searching for an event information, results, etc… anyway regardless of brand building. Why was it so important to start this now when Google has made a statement they do not believe in this form of advertising in the past?

Up until now, Google has not been spending money on traditional media. Moreover, for an event like the Olympics,  sponsors are dishing out 100’s of Millions of $$$ for brand building. Google has traditionally used search and its own assets in search results at the top of the page as their form of marketing.  As they have said, “We are not keen on tweaking the organic results, but always like to follow their regimented strategic algorithms for determining what gets on the top of the pages”.  Some of the best marketing during the Olympics is going to come through Search during the weeks the events are live.  What I found interesting was that Google has really built up  its own strategy as a method to get the maximum exposure to their own properties without spending money on traditional media.    Have you seen their initiative around Google Earth and the 3D creations of all the different venues as a form of sponsorship?  Google offered to do these 3D models of the venues as a service for the Olympics Events.  I find this a very interesting offer, but can only imagine that the real reason behind this is to give themselves good ranking if the Olympics puts these links on the pages of Olympics site.  They become the masters of their own game, a way to use their own algorithms to finesse the system to give Google assets high-ranking during the events; thus driving traffic to Google maps for visitors to find local information on the go during the events.  With the billions of Dollars spent by the sponsors during the events, Google may have just again gotten away with a kind-of-freebie for its own marketing efforts to potential spoof the traditional marketing system.  This is only my guess, but it somehow makes sense to me. Would love the gamet of SEO experts out there to comment on this if you can?

Back to the Superbowl…..so then why did they buy advertising the week before?  Again I am only thinking and guessing and I do not have facts to support this, but again it makes sense to me in the greater scheme of things this kind of thinking:

If Google is getting all this search traffic during the Olympics for somewhat free at the expense of the traditional sponsors by leveraging their own algorithms to their own advantage, it might just kick-up a stir amongst traditional media  in the effect that Google using its own engine to get marketing value and  not spending money on traditional media.  ” Oh No”, they can say….. did you see we do spend money on traditional media as well. Did you see our ads that ran last week?  So by spending money on traditional media from time and again makes for a good balanced media strategy when the pundits start to sniff…..Smart I would think.

Again, I am only thinking from the standpoint of business strategy and it makes perfect sense to master mind the shell game of spending money on different media.  In this case for them,  the pea is under all the shells?…… for us, maybe there never was a pea?

The music industry has had it challenges with monetization, but it appears that one of the greatest audience generators for the labels has been through video.  Even AdMob today announced a video platform for click through and advertising  that will become a core part of Google’s monetization strategy on mobile.  As long as the bandwith continues to expand and the replacement rate of smartphones stays on target, 2010~2011 will also be very strong transition periods for the growth of entertainment video content on mobile devices.   I was excited to see the tremendous powerful effect that Livestreaming concert U2 perfromed in LA a couple weeks back, with the quick to follow assemblance of other artists livestreaming thier concerts.  The Livestreaming of video with sponsors is not limited to concerts. We are seeing lifestreaming to be part of stardard conferences as well as means for spreading the content not only for the participants but the massives that would also like to participate.  Recently at the MMF ( Mobile Marketing Forum) in LA. the media company BNET livestreamed the event with much success. Between twitter, livestreaming and other channels, the real-time rich content distribution platforms are finally maturing into a business in their own right.  It will be interesting to follow how the record labels really take advantage of this trend as a major monetization vehicle. This is a key opportunity for UMG ( Universal Music Group) to take the lead and should positive ROI from the streaming of their artists in this emerging media.

In a recent blog post by James McQuivey of OmniVideo ( VP at Forrester Research), he mentions that the future of TV Remote is the mobile Web.  This is something I fundamentally believe in with the convergence of mobile with existing media platforms. As Companies like TVGuide, TiVo have started to release first release sites and products that have programing available via the site, the next phase will be to really change the channel from one piece of  Hardware in hand to another; total  access to content and hardware converged.

There was so much positive success by having an interative channel with American Idol with SMS thanks to AT&T with voting.  Can you image being able to be on the mobile-view of the TV Program American Idol at the same time, with the same services and more. Then being abile to change channels and make those EPG Settings.   Real time interactivity on screen will be a reality and the program themselves can control the back-channel for thier content programing and users.

There are companies such as Canoe, Back Channel Media that have been working on platform and technology solutions of interactive programing using overlays with the screen, but what they are missing are the core linkages to a mobile strategy and the power of having access via your mobile device simultaneously.

James, thanks for bringing this topic to surface as such a unique time.  In several years we will look back reflect at times when mobile devices and TV programs were not connected.