Google maps out strategy for outdoor advertising

Search giant markets map product using the one medium it has never sold

By Abbey Klaassen

Google has built the most powerful brand in the world with nary a bit of brand advertising. But as ads for Google Maps crop up on buses in San Francisco and trains in Chicago, it's clear the company is willing to shell out ad dollars to grow a product that's key to both local and mobile search.

The branding push promotes the service's transit features and comes at a time when Google is courting brand advertisers to buy online display ads, TV and radio. Incidentally, its own campaign focuses on the one medium Google hasn't dabbled in selling: outdoor.

A quick search on Flickr (sorry, Google Image Search) reveals about a half dozen Google ads uncovered around the country in the past six months, including bus ads and train wraps in the Bay Area, a wrapped El train in the Windy City and street teams in both cities that demonstrate the product for passersby. There was also an ad in San Francisco's AT&T Park.

Federated Media's John Battelle spotted that last one and posted it to his blog. “You might call it a non-[cost-per-click] banner display ad in the middle of the Web site that is AT&T Park,” he said, noting that only a year ago, Google VP-Marketing David Lawee told BusinessWeek that Google does a lot of direct marketing but “not brand marketing.”

But Battelle said brand marketing is inevitable for Google (even if you have the best product in the world, you have to tell people about it), and he's not alone in that line of thinking.

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