Why Google CEO wants $74 billion television advertising business

ALSO: Google Television engineering targets mass TV personalization and  Google searches for TV ad dollars    

I heard Schmidt assert to Bear Stearns in Palm Beach that the mission of Google is to deliver:

All the world’s information to each and every person on every device in every language in every location.

The myriad initiatives of Google support that purpose, Schmidt indicated. He also shared how Google aims to fund its global, universal world mission: “targeted advertising.”

Schmidt is particularly keen on targeting the $74 billion TV advertising business.

I reported earlier today how “Google searches for TV ad dollars” via aggressively ramping up its Google Television team and testing the delivery of TV commercials with cable operators.

Schmidt also extolled the Google Television advertising opportunity at its latest earnings call:

We are experimenting with traditional television advertising. It is fair to say that whatever we do will be new and different from the way it is currently sold and marketed,  using our targeting technology and our tremendous reach to see if we can improve what is already a good and robust business that others are in.

There are many reasons to believe that the targeting technology that we have invented can really apply well, that people will pay, advertisers in particular, will pay much higher rates for ads that are targeted than ones that are untargeted. So for example, set-top boxes can help you target to end users and the set-top boxes are now IP addressable. So there's a lot of evidence that as we link our systems into the systems of people who are operators, we can get another leg up on targeting and ultimately provide both a more useful advertising experience for the end user and also a better advertising experience for the advertiser themselves in terms of conversion.

Schmidt believes TV advertising currently presents a large “opportunity cost” to television advertisers. He put forth Tuesday the notion that TV ads are generally not appropriate for households in which they appear because they are not targeted. For example, Schmidt asked rhetorically, how many times are commercials shown about pets to households without pets.

Schmidt estimates that up to 95% of the world’s advertising is currently untargeted. Google aims to apply its “highly targetable” advertising which would “make a huge difference in the economics of advertising.”

A $74 billion television advertising difference!

ALSO: Why Google will never pay for content and Google arrogant? Google CEO Eric Schmidt responds and Can Google crack $74 billion TV ad market?