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Google kills AdWords!
Don’t pop the champagne – it’s just a rebrand with some AI pixie dust
LOGOWATCH When announcing its first quarter results for 2018, Google CEO Sundar Pichai focussed on what he called "our three big areas, cloud, YouTube and hardware".
As we noted at the time, that left the company’s biggest source of cash – ads – off the front page. Pichai did, however, say that the company is “excited by the still sizable opportunity in search advertising led by mobile” and had plans “ to enhance the user and advertiser experience."
And now we know what he was talking about: “Google Ads”.
That’s the new brand for the product formerly known as AdWords.
Google’s explanation for the change is that the world has changed so much in the 18 years since AdWords debuted – and riffed shamelessly on GoTo.com/Overture’s search marketing product – that it’s time for a re-org, re-logo and re-launch.
Those efforts seemingly evolve substantial change to AdWords/Google Ads. There’s a new “Smart campaigns” feature that works across multiple Google services and is said to employ machine learning so that small businesses will be able to quickly create campaigns of such potency that they won’t have a moment to relax after hitting “Go” because emails and phone calls from eager buyers will pour in.
Google’s also combined its DoubleClick products for advertisers with Google Analytics 360 Suite. They’re now collectively known as “Google Marketing Platform”.
DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange become a “complete and unified programmatic platform” dubbed “Google Ad Manager.”
And of course there’s a new logo! Google has posted a gigantic .GIF here that morphs the old AdWords logo into the new Google Ads glyph that we’ve put atop this story.
Sadly there’s no explanation for the symbolism of the new graphic. Seeing as it’s less angular and more rounded than its predecessor we imagine something about increased flexibility and fluidity. Your interpretations are doubtless better. Which is why we have a comments facility. ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
