Google To Run TV Ads For Chrome

2009 May 9
by Michael H. Berkens

Google plans to promote its Chrome Internet browser with a television commercial that will begin airing on at least one U.S. network this weekend, making it the search company’s first national TV ad campaign.

Google, TV as say Chrome is  “new way to get online,”.

The TV spot is part of a wider ad campaign that includes video ads on various Web sites, including the New York Times.

A Google spokesman said the TV ad, made in-house by the company’s Japanese team, was an experiment to determine whether it would boost usage of Chrome. The ad was chosen from a series of promotional videos the company previously posted on its YouTube video site.

Chrome’s market share has not yet reached 2% of Internet users.

Internet Explorer currently has 66% of the browser market,  Mozilla’s Firefox is at 22.5% and Apple’s Safari has about 8%.

7 Responses leave one →
  1. 2009 May 9

    I would have guessed that Internet Explorer had at least 95% of the market. 22.5% using Firefox is approaching 1 out of every 4 internet users. Quite surprised.

  2. 2009 May 9

    Wow, G really wants everyone to start using that browser. I wonder how much more money it will make them and how. One of the biggest things with browsers is all about getting your engine to be the default search. I’m sure that is a goal of theirs, but what else is going on here? Mass data collection perhaps?

  3. 2009 May 9
    Patrick McDermott permalink

    “I wonder how much more money it will make(Google) and how. ”

    I don’t know the full answer but at least $55 million.

    That $ figure is from a 2007 article I had read entitled “How Firefox earns
    US $55 million a year”.

    Every time someone did a Google search from the Google search box on the Firefox browser, cha ching!

    So if Google doesn’t have to pay Firefox = more $ in Google’s pockets.

    See here:
    http://apcmag.com/how_firefox_earns_us55million_a_year.htm

  4. 2009 May 9

    Beware of ff upgrades
    Takes your type in out of URL bar
    And reloads into search window
    Most consumers won’t ever notice

  5. 2009 May 10

    You’ll have to pry my Firefox out of my cold dead hands :-)

    Love the G but FF, combined with xmarks (free, remote bookmarks backup) and I have no reason to even look for anything else.

  6. 2009 May 10

    Rob, you’re awesome

  7. 2009 May 11

    G’s bottom line reason for doing what they hate doing (paying for advertising):

    They’re not at all happy w/the growth rate or number of Chrome “sign ups.”

    But of course, we’ll never hear them admit that.

Leave a Reply

Note: You can use basic XHTML in your comments. Your email address will never be published.

Subscribe to this comment feed via RSS

Please copy the string BZmuMO to the field below: