Just because they’re Google, doesn’t mean they don’t make rookie errors.

Yes, I have an example so odious it called for a double negative in the post title. As you know, in addition to amassing more data than the NSA on each and every current, former, and possibly future global citizen, Google is trying to make itself the default operating system for advertising.

Part of that strategy for world domination is the medium of radio, which Google is attempting to integrate into AdWords.

I experienced about 30 seconds of the demo, and now you must, too, so we can compare notes.

My first reaction is to wonder why, if you’re selling radio, which is audio, would your demo have such bad audio? It sounds as if it were recorded straight from the desktop mic of a cheap PC. Would a pop filter kill ya? A decent mic and mic pre? Would it be too much trouble to have the last link in the demo actually go somewhere? (currently, this goes to Blankville: https://trainingcenter.google.com/adcreationmarketplace/)

Secondly,when Google shows off the kinds of radio spots it can deliver from its network of professionals, they should give more than two examples, and one of them shouldn’t start with the line: “You’ve got a little problem in bed.”

I don’t know why I would expect Google to know anything about the creative and production sides of advertising, considering that they’ve never done any traditional advertising that I’ve seen, but I would have guessed that someone Mountain View would have enough background in advertising to insist on something better than this, which I think falls short of most station-produced spots.

Weirdly, they seem self-confident enough to expand their tentacles into TV and print, though I see no examples of their handiwork yet.

Much of the rest of the radio demo looked and sounded comprehensible in terms of placement, tracking, and budgeting, and probably targeting in creepy ways, but unless they get it together on the creative and production end, all they’ve done build a bigger pipeline for crap.

Lastly, let me say that it’s disturbing for me to see a company with the size, resources and power of Google exhibit such cluelessness about advertising, which if not why, is at least how it survives.