INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Google complex lineup of ad products is getting rebranded.
Sridhar Ramaswamy, the senior vice president who leads Google ad efforts,
explained the rebrand at a press event this morning, where he said the company has been getting &consistent feedback& over the past few
years that the plethora of ad products and brands — assembled largely through acquisitions — could make it be confusing for
advertisers.
&This is a primarily a name change, but it is indicative of where we have been directing the product& for the past few years,
He also said the rebrand points to &where we want the product to go.&
Moving forward, Google ad products will be divided up into three major
First, what now known as AdWords will become Google Ads, which Ramaswamy said will serve as &the front door for advertisers to buy on all
Google surfaces,& whether that search, display ads, YouTube videos, app ads in Google Play, location listings in Google Maps or
elsewhere.
In this case, it not just a name change
Google is also launching something it calls Smart Campaigns, which will become the default mode for advertisers
It allows those advertisers to identify the actions (whether it phone calls, store visits or purchases) that they&re prioritizing, then
Google Ads will use machine learning to optimize the images, text and targeting to drive more of those actions.
The second brand is the
Google Marketing Platform, which combines DoubleClick Digital Marketing and Google Analytics 360, the company analytics tools for marketers
Under that umbrella, Google is also announcing a new product called Display Video 360, which combines features from DoubleClick Bid
Manager, Campaign Manager, Studio and Audience Center.
Managing Director for Platforms Dan Taylor said the Google Marketing Platform is
responding to a growing need for collaboration — for example, he said Adidas used the platform to bring its brand and performance
marketing teams together with the measurement team.
The Marketing Platform includes a new Integrations Center where marketers can view all
the ways they can different ways they can connect their Google tools
(And while the focus here is on integration within Google platform, Taylor said the company remains committed to interoperability with
outside ad exchanges and measurement providers.)
The third brand is Google Ad Manager, a platform that combines Google monetization tools
for publishers, namely DoubleClick Ad Exchange and DoubleClick for Publishers
In this case, Jonathan Bellack, director of product management for publisher platforms, said there already been a &three-year journey& of
merging the two products as the programmatic ad-buying becomes used across more types of advertising.
&These categories have just been
breaking down for a while — all of our publishers already log into one user interface,& Bellack said
So the only thing that really changing is &the logo.&
One result of all this consolidation, and one that Ramaswamy described as
&bittersweet,& is that the DoubleClick brand is going away
On the other hand, while they weren&t the focus of today announcement, the AdSense and Admob brands will continue.
The rebrand is expected
to start rolling out in July
Ramaswamy and Taylor both emphasized that no product migration or training will be required.
&The look and feel is going to change a little
bit, but the core functionality is not changing,& Taylor said.
