Google Gets into the Radio Business

So the folks at Google now want to help you create, plan and place your radio ad campaign. Google Audio Ads lets you create radio ads, set a budget to air them, pick your geographies, the time of day the ads run, and the radio station format (i.e., country, adult contemporary) that they run on.

This is all part of the democratization of communications. Now anyone can make a video and share it on YouTube. Anyone can build a website. And, as this very site proves, anyone can have a blog.

This isn't new. Pagemaker brought desktop publishing to the masses in the 1980s. It was going to mean the end of design firms everywhere with it's simple templates.

Audio ads should help certain people without a lot of money get on the radio. And marginal advertising is, I suppose, a bit better than no advertising. SpotRunner does the same for TV advertising. It's a good thing, truly, to have this option. The average TV spot made today costs over $300,000 just to make it!

Democracy is good. But for most clients, having professional help should pay for itself.