Hasta La Creative!

The Google is cozying up to ad agencies, according to The New York Times.

During the last year, Google has built a 40-person group that is charged with courting agencies, trying to persuade them that their clients should buy ads on Google sites and use the search engine’s tools.

Google could avoid ad agencies when it sold only search advertising, where it is dominant. But now that it has a wider set of products in more areas — including social media and virtual reality — it finds that it must work harder to drum up business, particularly because of the lingering hard feelings.

Google is “definitely a must-buy in search, but in other things it’s not a must-buy,” said Jeff Ratner, managing partner and digital director at MindShare North America. “As they start moving more into ad networks and other mediums, they need the agency to help make it a reality.”