Google Goggles goes commercial, partners with five brands in marketing experiment

If you have an Android or iPhone smartphone, the chances are you will have at least heard something about Google Goggles, an innovative service that allows smartphone users to search the web by simply taking a picture on their handset.

Almost a year has passed since the feature became available but today Google is announcing a new initiative, partnering with five brands in what it calls a “Google Goggles marketing experiment”. The five brands; Buick, Disney, Diageo, T-Mobile and Delta Airlines have adapted their print adverts, posters and other media and made them “Goggles-enabled”, giving mobile users the opportunity to take photos of the media pieces and have mobile websites delivered by the Goggles app.

Google posted an overview of the campaigns in the following video:

Shailesh Nalawadi, Product Manager, Google Goggles writes:

We developed Google Goggles so that people could more easily explore the world around them with a mobile device. In this experiment, we’re applying the same principles, and the same technology, by “Goggles-enabling” advertisements and other media, and offering to link people to the mobile sites from these brands.

When you scan this “Goggles-enabled” Buick ad with Google Goggles, you can connect directly with Buick’s mobile experience.

Should this be successful, Google could incorporate its technology in its other advertising services, offering the service to a number of other brands. Its another small step in Google’s attempt to dominate mobile.

To see how these campaigns work for yourself, you can download Google Goggles from the Android Market or the Google Mobile App on the iPhone App Store, then find some “Goggles-enabled” media to scan.