Eh, I think this actually makes sense. The idea of Google turning to Japan for their next Billion in the advertising realm is logical considering the saturation in the West.

Google Inc., well known for relying on word of mouth to spread news of its services, launched its first large-scale advertising campaign last week in Tokyo.

The campaign promotes its Google News service and involves posters on subway and railway trains and at five major railway stations in the Tokyo metropolitan area, said Kaori Saito, a spokeswoman for Google Japan. In addition to the scheduled 7,770 transport ads, the campaign is also using banner ads on 18 Web sites.

The first transport ads appeared on subway trains on March 30 and the last ones will be taken down on May 10.

The launch of the campaign was timed to coincide with the beginning of the Japanese financial year, said Saito. April 1 is typically the day that large Japanese companies take in new employees. It is also close to the beginning of the school and university year, so many people are starting “new lives” at around this time of year. With the campaign, Google wants to promote itself as a way for people to get information relevant to their new lives, said Saito.

The ads list a handful of news events and the times at which they were first reported in an effort to raise a sense of urgency about keeping up with the latest news, said Daigo Hayamizu of the advertising agency Grey Worldwide, which created the campaign.

Also highlighted is the service’s recently launched personalization option, which lets users create sections for their favorite news topics and also bring in news from the 22 global versions of the service. [Read the rest]