Different markets have different needs for marketing products or services. We all know that much. But that doesn’t take away the weirdness of a company like Google advertising its core product (online search) by using ink that was printed on paper.

Guilty of this hideous crime (I kid, I kid) is Google India, who apparently ordered some targeted quarter-page advertisements to appear in a variety of city supplements of The Times Of India, the leading English-language daily newspaper in the country.

According to PluGGd.in – who we can also credit for taking the picture of the ad – this isn’t exactly the first time Google India has advertised services in dead tree form. They apparently also ran a print campaign to promote the company’s SMS search service back in November 2008.

But this could well be the first time the Internet behemoth feels the need to pimp its search service in print. Or is it?

Have you ever heard about other countries where Google advertises its search engine in printed publications? Let us know in comments.