Google Paper Advertising

I received some direct mail from Google yesterday. Now, I know I shouldn’t be surprised (I mean, Google must be closest thing to Big Brother so far) but frankly it did come as a surprise. I guess I never really thought Google would stray from their online model.

I wonder how successful this move (ie to paper advertising) will be. Obviously direct marketing is a lot more expensive than online based marketing, so I assume they have done their sums. The question in my mind is: why? Does it mean they are losing their effectiveness online? Or is this just part of their brand building across mediums.

I remember after the Dot Com boom we saw the whole banner ad method get the boot, and by all accounts Google has completely reinvigorated that (perhaps they are only company making ‘real’ money from it?).

By the way, here’s possibly the most annoying use of banner ads I’ve seen – yes, there is upto 4 separate banner ads on one page (and yes I know the last thing I should be doing is linking to a banner ad based site when I hate banner ads…).