Google is a master of online advertising, and in recent days, has more than ever been vilified as an enemy of the newspaper industry. People were understandably surprised, then, to find ads for Chrome plastered all over a UK newspaper this morning.
The Metro is a free paper targeted at commuters in 16 cities. It’s supposed to be the world’s largest free paper and the UK’s fourth largest paper of any sort, with 1.3 million copies distributed every weekday.
Then here’s the interesting part: today, the Metro is sporting a wraparound cover promoting Chrome.
Martin Bryant wrote, “The ad’s front page . . . describes Chrome as ‘A fast, new browser. Made for everyone.’ . . . . Inside, the ad explains why Google made the browser and details its features such as the unique way it handles tabs and its Incognito mode . . .”
Finally, “The rear of the ad lists items such as 10 days of holiday left, about to expire; 27 emails between my wife and I hatching travel plans; 7 potential travel plans generated on 4 travel sites, 3 playlists generated on Spotify.’ It then goes on to read ‘6 tabs open, 0 crashes, 1 browser.'”
If this wraparound is successful, we may see more real-world ads from Google in the future.
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