Google has forged into a new deal with online video advertising company, SpotMixer, that allows advertisers to use SpotMixer’s video creation technology to create television commercials for their products free of cost, and then air them on TV as well as online.

Ads can be made either in the form of images, audio and / or video content selected from a vast database provided by Google, or from the advertisers’ own uploaded content. There is also an adjustable soundtrack so that advertisers can record the ad in a voice of their choice if they so desire.

The service can be accessed from the “Submit Ad” page when creating a Google TV ads campaign. Google has provided the short video clip shown below to teach advertisers how to use this service.

Creating a new TV ad with the tool is quite a simple procedure really. After logging into the AdWords account, users have to select an appropriate categories for the industry concerned or the type of product to be advertised and then select from relevant images, audio or video content using a drag and drop interface. Advertisers can customise the ad to their requirement by clicking the link to “Add more images and video”. They can also dynamically change the templates to give the ad a more personal look. Completed ads need to be downloaded and then added to the TV Ads Campaign.

This is a great idea for a cheap, do-it-yourself system to advertise products and service to a wide audience. It should help start-ups with limited budgets advertise on television alongside big brands without needing to spend a lot on ad production. The service was launched in beta back in September 2008, for a few clients and they are already reporting positive feedback.

Rumour has it that Google may create an open-source hardware platform for television and attract developers to build applications on top of it. As usual, Google will not comment on any such rumour, but speculation has already stirred up the blogosphere once again.

The existence of Google TV Ads has been public knowledge since March 2007. Google TV Ads is currently in closed beta and allows advertisers to buy spots via Echostar’s Dish network. Advertisers receive second-by-second data about viewership data.

Google TV Ads

Vincent Dureau, the head of Google’s TV technology team says, “We are confident we are going to revive the television advertising industry by bringing new advertising to it.”

The prospects are very promising, but till Google officially announces their plans, all predictions about their intentions for TV advertising are nothing more than mere speculation.