The Googlization of Everything

Chris Matyszczyk:

So you create a search engine with a very basic all-text look. Then you make a fortune out of ads that look just like your search results.

But then you buy YouTube. That's where the problems start.

Because, well, the stuff on YouTube moves. You don't really have too much experience with moving stuff. You've never even bothered about ads for your own brand, moving or not. And, put kindly, you've never had that much of a design aesthetic.

Such is Google's dilemma which is being played out all too clearly in some of its experiments with ads on YouTube.

The formula that appears to have gained most visibility is the one in which a standard square display ad is the immovable object to the right of the video. Then, just as the fifteenth second of the video is past, a fifteen-second long animation appears in the lower portion of the video area.

The thing is, the animation and the display ad are both advertising the same thing. They use the same elements, as if the site were given a little cut and paste kit from which to make everything.

In my most recent wafting through YouTube's labyrinth, every music video I saw was linked to a promotion for Las Vegas. Every music video that had been legally uploaded by a music company, that is. (Examples were Nelly and Fergie's 'Party People', Rehab's 'Bartender Song' and V.I.C's 'Wobble'.)

In addition, The Young Turks' political commentary was graced by moving appeals from the U.S Olympic team. While the Onion News Network was festooned with encouragements to watch the Discovery Channel's 'Mythbusters.'.

What is strange about these ads is that Google isn't really testing whether the films can be interrupted by messages. It's testing whether the scrolling animation (which never reappears after the thirtieth second) plus the still version of it at the side can somehow cumulatively motivate.

In a medium where users don't want to see ads at all, this is a little like you telling your Mom that you won't eat greens, her response being to give you big green beans and small green beans.

It would truly be interesting to see whether animation standing alone below the film might have an effect. But it would have to be inventive, as well as relevant, animation.

This current two 'fer feels a little mechanical and, dare one say it, desperate. ...