Photo by Mike Blumenthal. Used with permission.

Mike Blumenthal took a picture of a billboard ad in upstate New York for Google’s free directory assistance alternative, Goog411. This is interesting and amusing for a number of reasons.

The company, which has historically not marketed its products (although that is changing), is using a very traditional ad medium to promote its non-traditional local voice search offering. However, people will see this when they’re driving in their cars, which is one of the expected use cases. Another interesting thing is the location, a relatively obscure rural area:

Photo by Mike Blumenthal. Used with permission.

But perhaps that’s also quite intentional, to test a campaign and see if it drives traffic, so to speak.

Postscript: Valleywag picked this up and thinks it’s not a test of the efficacy of traditional media to build an audience for Goog411. Rather they think:

Google is interested in expanding into all forms of advertising, including the $7 billion outdoor market — billboards, that is. Perhaps it’s purchased some billboard space, in the hopes of using its dynamic, auction-based ad-selling system to resell it at a profit. Until it finds buyers, it may be using the billboards to promote its own services.

Clearly Google has an out-of-home strategy (some discussion here), but I’m not sure this is its introduction.

Related Topics: Google: Mobile | Google: Voice Search

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling