Google tells SEC it could serve ads to thermostats, cars, refrigerators, and other devices
Google Predicts Ads in Odd Spots Like Thermostats — Advertising may be coming to your thermostat and lots of other strange places, courtesy of Google. — In a December letter to the Securities …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google had already explored advertising beyond conventional web pages, from gadget ads to potential Street View placements, and had discussed the future of TV advertising. Its SEC disclosure extends that arc to connected household and automotive devices.
The significance is less a product launch than a broadening of Google’s stated ad-inventory ambition: interfaces embedded in physical products are being treated as possible media surfaces.
First-order effects
- Google has identified thermostats, cars and refrigerators as potential additions to the ad surfaces it can pursue, alongside its earlier experiments in gadgets, maps and TV.
- The disclosure puts connected-device interfaces on Google’s advertising roadmap without establishing that ads have been deployed on any of them.
Second-order effects
- Manufacturers of connected thermostats, vehicles and appliances become potential gatekeepers for Google’s ad distribution, because they control the interfaces Google has identified.
- Advertisers seeking Google’s reach would gain a prospective set of context-specific placements beyond browser and display formats if Google secures access to those devices.
Third-order effects
- If Google converts these categories into products, control of the connected-device interface becomes a media-rights issue for appliance makers, automakers and software platforms—not merely a hardware-design decision.
The trend: Google is testing the boundary of its advertising business by treating more software-enabled screens and interfaces as potential inventory.