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"In the two years since its launch, publishers large and small have experimented with Google Hangout to host group video chats with well-known guests, readers and staff, hoping to engage readers and attract new followers. Now, Google is helping publishers monetize their efforts.\nOn Monday, Glamour magazine is launching a month-long series of Hangouts featuring staffers, online personalities \u2014 and products. Eight of the nine Hangouts are sponsored by a company, whose products are featured centrally in the content. In a Hangout for Unilever-owned Suave, for example, DIY blogger Erica Domesek will show how to make hair accessories for hair styled by Suave stylists. A L'Oreal-sponsored Hangout with Glamour stylist Annabel Tollman will show viewers how to wear ombr\u00E9 hair, as colored by Loreal's F\u00E9ria Wild Ombr\u00E9 product. \nOther sponsors include designer Vince Camuto, Pantene, Alterna Haircare, La Crema and SlimFast. Each sponsor is also advertising in Glamour's beauty-themed May issue.\nSome of the Hangouts will invite viewers to converse; others will be closed sessions, during which users will be asked to comment on social media networks using hashtags.\nThe idea for product placements was conceived during a meeting between Glamour and Google staffers about six months ago, Bill Wackermann, Glamour's publisher, told Mashable in a phone interview last week.\nWackermann says the program is a way to put advertisers' products in front of Glamour's 1.5 million Google+ followers in a format that's both compelling (in an editorial sense) and makes those products part of a story. It's also content advertisers can use to distribute on their own social media channels.\nGlamour will be promoting the series in the magazine and through paid Google ads, Wackermann says. Google will not be receiving a share of ad revenue.\nGretchen Howard, global head of sales and strategy for Google+, says this is the first time she has seen a business publisher include product placement or any other form of advertising in a Hangout. \"If this experiment works out, it will make a great case study for us and other publishers to replicate,\" Howard says. At present, Google has no plans to bring commercials or any other video ads to the platform, she says.\nImage courtesy of Glamour"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/04/08/google-hangouts-product-placements-glamour/>