For years Google GOOGL -0.32% was something of an odd duck when it came to advertising, at least advertising its own products and services. Up until 2010 it considered brand advertising to “the last bastion of unaccountable spending in corporate America” as CEO Eric Schmidt so famously said. That year the company did an about face – Schmidt sent out a Tweet warning that hell was about to freeze over – and ran an ad during the Super Bowl. Television ads followed soon after.
Now Google has gotten even splashier with its branding, debuting an ad earlier this month on the biggest, most eye-catching digital billboard in New York City’s Time Square.
The billboard is eight stories high, wrapping around the front of the Marriott Marquis Hotel on Broadway between 45th and 46th streets. Google is paying about $2.5 million to run a four-week ad on it, Bloomberg reports.
The creative currently running on the display highlights Google’s products including Google Maps and Android. There is an interactive element to it, with passerby urged to “Androidify” themselves by personalizing the Android Robot via an employee on the ground equipped with a tablet, The Verge reports. Each creation appears on the billboard eventually.
The question is why this channel, and why now?
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