Google Says Home's Plug for Disney Was ‘Timely Content,’ Not Ad

Well that's random--I worked closely with Bryson (the person who posted the video) in a past life at a search agency. Smart guy.

As to the topic at hand--as a marketer with a deep background in paid search, this is the giant question. How will Google monetize in a world where screens, even mobile ones, are less relevant. If your phone stays in your pocket and you primarily interact via Air Pods or whatever, traditional text ads, or even display ads have no place.

It may be that the data is just leveraged for improved targeting in those other mediums, but it also means that audio ads are going to become more prominent. But can they be implemented in a way that isn't super invasive? At least with search ads you can scroll past them easily enough, but not so with an audio ad.

There's also a ton of tracking issues that may cause this to be more the domain of brand marketers vs. direct response. Pretty hard to tag someone with a tracking pixel when they are just hearing your ad. Google will of course have the data, but large advertisers typically want to use their own tracking.

My hope, and I'm not sure how realistic this is, would be that the strong reception Google has seen with the Pixel will encourage them to continue a shift to being a hardware-driven platform so they can make profit there, and then sell access to their AI via licensing fees or just direct-to-consumer subscription fees. This has the huge benefit from a consumer-standpoint of better aligning interests between Google and end users (who would be the actual customers), instead of the current relationship where advertisers are Google's customers, and users are the product.

Now, knowing Google and how capitalism works, they would probably charge people AND do advertising, but one can dream.