Google Advertising Locally?

Danny Sullivan pointed to a very interesting thread on the Webmaster World forum about Google advertising in the Kansas City market for Google Local.

I had heard a rumor about this from an Advertising Age reporter a few weeks ago. I've requested a Google briefing. We'll see if they want to comment about it.

Google rarely does anything that could be considered "advertising" and is testing a radio and print campaign, apparently, to build awareness and usage of Local. In addition, this suggests to me that Google is very serious about developing Local and wants to accelerate that process — or at least is testing whether traditional media advertising (ironically) will do that.

From the forum:

I live in the Kansas City area in the US and for the last week or so I've been hearing advertisements on the radio for Google local search. The ad talks about Google's intuitive search and how it helps the commercial's "subject" find a "window fixer" because she doesn't know what that type of person is called. The thing that really grabbed my attention was an advertisement in the Kansas City newspaper this past Sunday which was also advertising Google Local. It was an 8.5" x 11" laminated insert talking about Google Local. I thought this was interesting as I've never seen any push with conventional advertising for Google.

Actually, the advertisement in the paper was a really good ploy for the not-so-computer savvy person. The Google ad looked like a blank page from the yellow pages. The letter tab was E, page number "522 Everything". In the middle of the page, in the size and style of a yellow page listing, "Everything you're looking for locally" appears with the listing below saying: Google Local ………………… local.google.com.

The back of the page says "Keep this handy reference card near your computer. Use it to find stuff in your neighborhood. (Or, if you're in desperate need of a placemat, we're good at that too.)"

Very intreresting. If it plays in Kansas "middle America" City, it should play everywhere.