Google’s latest ‘doodle’ harks back to the golden age of TV advertising in the 1940s and 50s when audiences had a choice of three channels.

 Advertisers with healthy budgets could air their ads across the three channels thereby catching the entire TV viewing population of North America. At its height from 1951-53 ‘I Love Lucy,’ aired on CBS, drew a weekly audience of over 67 million. Today, approximately 99 million people visit Google every week and the online search company has taken the decision to leverage its reach by breaking with its norm by placing an animated ad for Google+ on its homepage.

Why is this ad important? Google had north of 25 million registered users for Google+ in August 2011. With an ad reach to 99 million weekly viewers this ad changes the landscape for social media and provides a much needed shot in the arm for Google+. The undisputed leader is Facebook with 700 million members so Google+ has a long way to go to even remotely impact on the Facebook numbers, but Google appears to have the wherewith all to leverage  resources and muscle to be patient. Over in the other corner, Microsoft is running to standstill with losses on Bing reported to be running at $1 billion per quarter.

If we step back in time, briefly to 1941, all of 70 years ago, the first television advertisement was broadcast in the United States. The watchmaker Bulova paid $9 for a placement on New York station WNBT before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. The 20-second spot displayed a picture of a clock superimposed on a map of the United States, accompanied by the voice-over “America runs on Bulova time.

It was all of 14 years later in 1955 that the first ad would air on UK TV when advertising Gibbs SR toothpaste. The commercial owed its prime placing to chance. The Gibbs advertisement had come first in a lottery drawn with 23 other advertisements, including those for Guinness, Surf, National Benzole, Brown & Polson Custard and Summer County Margarine.

Before Google and Facebook and other online companies arrived, the supply chain(s) and route(s) to market for marketing and sales executives was pretty straight forward. With primary research we segmented and advertised to those segments (via TV, radio and print), and then shipped products to those segments either directly or through various channels. A simple I know,  overview but it helps to paint the picture.

Now, as of writing on September 21^st 2011, there is an entire new world living online and it never sleeps. The real challenge for supply chains is how to listen to the conversations that are taking place and how best to engage with the happy and not so happy consumers of our products or services. As so many brands have found out, not listening is more detrimental because by listening, at least then you can engage and offer your point of view.

Do you have a Google+ account?