News arrived yesterday that Google is shutting down their Print and Radio ad systems. It’s unfortunate news for brand advertisers and the traditional media formats.

An ironic tag-line for Google’s Print & Radio Platform

With eBay / Kijiji and beRecruited, I was one of the systems’ early advertisers… creating multiple campaigns that ran across dozens of markets’ radio stations and newspapers. Google made it simple to craft campaigns, connect with the papers / stations and find talent to create the ad units. Google’s traditional media marketplace was as simple as AdWords – but across a far more fragmented, complicated landscape.

I was always wowed by the technology side. But more importantly – it drove results.

Measuring conversion and ROI is harder (obviously), but advertising in Radio and Print (via Google) enabled reach across users that AdWords simply doesn’t serve – either via audience or ad format.

On a higher level, this marks an important moment because we are at the intersection of traditional and online media. And as the newspaper and radio worlds struggle with the online shift (and business models) – this was an opportunity to have these worlds meet together. Sure there are tons of issues (fragmentation, pricing models, and so forth) – but simply put, Google Print and Radio worked. And that means I was willing to spend money (and continue doing so) and the stations / papers had access to new campaigns and budgets (without a sales force).

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