Google’s Shared Endorsement a Branding Strategy

Have you ever wished to be a star in an advertisement? Well! Your wish is granted. Google has announced “Shared Endorsements”.  The “shared endorsements,” Google believes will enhance the credibility of the product/service when it is advertised with information from users who reviewed, rated and gave a +1.

This reminds me about Facebook’s “sponsored stories”, when they used user's likes into ads on their site without the consent of the users. This action resulted in a massive public outcry, forcing the social network to change its privacy policy, and limit the use of public content. 

Google's move is different. How Google’s Shared Endorsements work? Let’s say you have a Google Account, a +1, and you wrote a review about Pizza Pino restaurant for your friends and family to see. When a user searches for Pizza Pino on Google, they may see an ad for that restaurant along with your profile picture and reviews.

The new scheme is by default. They have specified this in their privacy policy that the user’s content will be used, and shared for endorsement.  It means Google holds the right to use the content at its discrepancy. If you want to restrict your reviews and likes to friends and family, and don’t want to be a part of shared endorsement, un-check the box on the setting page of “shared endorsement”.  At present it is not linked with Google+ account or privacy settings (this is yet to be implemented, so Google may be waiting to incorporate the page once the feature is active). 

All said and done, fine...so who is the real beneficiary at the users’ cost? We know Google wants to sell more ads by making it look genuine with user’s reviews and comments. Such product endorsement, especially from friends and families, is effective bait to brands for viral marketing on a large scale. Social advertising, which includes ads and endorsements, is a $9.5 billion business, according to eMarketer, and that account for 8 percent of digital ad spending. We have seen the impact of celebrity endorsement, and this time its genuine users' endorsing. Clearly Google is the winner and kudos to their think tanks.