What does Google really know about advertising?
Google has been following me around lately.
I'm not sure if I've made one inadvertent comment too many about my liberal lords and masters, but whichever Web page I happen to visit in order to seek some temporary respite from my complicated life, there I find an ad suggesting I should buy a Nexus One.
Actually, it's hard to call these things "ads." They're little pictures of the Nexus One. Some have no message to speak of. Others enjoy lines such as "it's ultra-light." This is a line I associate most closely with cigarettes, so I don't know whether Google wants to get me into the habit of thinking about the Nexus One every 5 minutes, but somehow I haven't yet inhaled.
I'm told the Nexus One is an abject failure. Or not. Apparently, Google said it only expected to sell 150,000 of these precious devices. Apparently, the company is walking a terribly fine line between upsetting carriers right now or upsetting carriers in the future. How admitting that you're going to upset them in the future doesn't upset them right now, I'm not sure.
The idea, supposedly, behind Nexus One was that Google merely wanted to show us the future: phones that could work with any carrier and didn't require you to be beholden. Right now, though, it doesn't want carriers to throw prima donna hissy-fits and refuse to enjoy the multifarious benefits of the Android system.
(Credit:
Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
So, um, Google wants us to believe that it put out a phone that it hoped wouldn't sell too well so that the carriers wouldn't get upset? This is the company that is supposedly so fearless that it is even prepared to niggle Steve Jobs so much that he might actually swear and issue lawsuits? This is the company that wants to be the dominant player in every single vaguely technological and informational category?
If it doesn't want to sell too many Nexus Ones, why is Google following me around the Web all the time? Might I offer a small thought? Is it possible that Google isn't very good at advertising?
I know you'll tell me I must have been at the dessert wine. This, after all, is the company that makes 97 percent of its vast, infernal profits from advertising.
Please, please, put down the baseball bat and take a seat. Have some dessert wine yourself. Google makes its money not from advertising that creates demand but from advertising that directs demand. It does it brilliantly. It has used its brain power to extraordinary effect. But it's a very rational brain power.
Creating demand for many products, though, isn't rational. It never was. And, until we finally reach the robot phase of our development, it never will be. Palm Pre seems to be a lovely example of a phone that might be terribly good but for which demand simply wasn't created at the emotional level. And we see what has happened there.
I hate to mention Apple, but don't its products always seem to engender excitement? Excitement is an emotion. People talk about an Apple formula. It's anything but. Sometimes, the word "magic" is appropriate. It is not a word one associates so readily with Google.
Google has shown it rarely understands, appreciates, or even takes account of the emotional level of your average human. Ken Auletta, author of "Googled," managed to get the company's co-founder Sergey Brin to admit that the company lacks "emotional intelligence." Emotional intelligence is the heart of advertising that creates demand.
The launch of Google Buzz, for example, was a failure of advertising, as much as it was a failure of aforethought. Google communicated Buzz so badly, with such little consideration for real people's minds and lives, that a backlash became inevitable.
Similarly, with Nexus One, it's hard not to retain the notion that Google had no communication strategy. Consider what you felt when Google came out with this cell phone: it was a cell phone. It was made by Google. It seemed to be well reviewed. Cool, huh?
This is all very rational. It isn't enough. What a great advertising campaign can do is to create a fascination that rises far above any rational attribute of a product. It's hard to do. Sometimes, it doesn't work. It's maddening, frankly. And Google has very little experience in the process of creating such a campaign, never mind in the judgment required to choose what the campaign should entail.
In many ways, there's no reason to assume Google should know how to do this. When you think of Google's commitment to research and rationality, a powerful, emotional campaign would have had virtually no chance of emerging, even if some Googlie could create one.
Web meets phone? Isn't that the iPhone?
(Credit: Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)This is the company that discusses 41 shades of blue until it's 41 shades of blue in the face. That might produce efficiency of some kind. It won't produce magic. Who can forget the parting words of Google visual designer leader Douglas Bowman, after he walked out to join Twitter last year: "I won't miss a design philosophy that lives or dies strictly by the sword of data."
It's interesting how, in certain small areas, Google has tried to create advertising that brings with it some kind of emotional attachment. There was the Super Bowl ad, so sweetly dubbed by CEO Eric Schmidt as a "video." It was perhaps the first time that Google has used a mass arena to curry emotional favor. But what did it sell--at least in theory? Search. Something that really doesn't need to be sold.
Then there were the U.K. subway billboards selling Chrome. Again, a valiant, groping, uncertain attempt to emotionally engage a more mass market through communication.
It may well be that, one day, all retail will exist only online. And Google has succeeded so well without having to advertise any of its wares. But its wares, until now, were virtual, not physical.
The Nexus One, of all products, screamed out for emotional attachment. Here was a category in which look, feel and image count for a lot. Yet by sticking to its online-only model of sales, the company didn't put it in enough people's hands and didn't inspire people at the emotional level to want it in their hands. Was this because Google really, really didn't want to sell too many Nexus Ones, or because the company doesn't have the knowledge, the confidence, the judgment, or the process to create something to make that happen?
Google is great at many things. This doesn't mean it's great at everything. The commercial world is full of products that might have wonderful characteristics, but terrible advertising. There are many products with wonderful distribution, but terrible advertising. It takes inspired creative people, risk, judgment, investment and a feel for people's minds and souls to create a campaign that attaches itself to people's hearts and then slips a little lower into their pockets.
Google could have chosen to inspire people with the astounding, indispensable machine that is the Nexus One. It didn't. Was it really because it didn't want to sell too many? Or might it have been because it didn't know how? And if Google really didn't want to sell too many Nexus Ones, why does it keep asking me to buy one?
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
I think he's drunk himself. I don't see any journalism here, really I don't. This is not a creative writing class.
But I'll bet that ad views > journalism. :)
@Matyszczyk
If you're going to write in a tech blog, don't riddle it with political jabs. I go to political forums for that. That's almost like a verbal pop up ad and we all hate those.
Also, I was never enticed by the silly promos for the Droid. In fact, I hadn't seen one until after I had the phone. The allure for me was the Iphone-like abilities on the verizon network and the promise of flash in the future. Or maybe it was the salesperson. It is funny, I went into the Verizon store looking for a blackberry and left with a Droid.
Therefore, a secondary retail channel should have helped. Contrary to Chris's claim, Google doesn't fear carriers but it has valid reasons to fear upsetting other hardware manufacturers selling Android phones.
Apple pays for advertising - lots of it.
The only place they're good at actually putting the ads in the hands (eyes and brains) of the consumer is via their search engine. As such, they're pretty much doomed to failure as a retailer in every other domain until they get a lot of corporate cultural experience.
Let's see; Apple has used child labor to build iphones... has begun savagely curtailing the rights of consumers by banning everything from bikinis to wifi finders to apps they find "too expensive" from their app store (clearly Apple does not believe in the free market)... Apple has recently announced and will soon release a "revolutionary" device which does *less* than an iphone (my N1 has better specs and functionality than the ipad)...
I used to be a die-hard Apple lover. ...but I've learned to just like whoever makes a superior product and affords me my consumer rights. Today, that company is Google. Tomorrow? Who knows.
Yes, lovely fluffy Google. Making money from selling every piece of information about you to the highest bidder.
Consumer rights are skewed whichever company you 'pick'.
Isn't pretty much everything that Google does ugly as hell? Not only that, but not user friendly either.
Similar to Microsoft (before Microsoft started thinking about design) but instead they're from the "Hey, it's free, what do you expect" School of Design.
Analytics is their only web service that looks half decent. Everything else I've seen (I'm happy to be proved wrong) just doesn't look good and isn't that simple to use (with the exception of their search engine which is obviously as easy as typing in a box).
I'm happy to be proved wrong. Come on, hit me with it...
Now, if you'd like to discuss measurable fact...
For Example, the Nexus One is a superior device in every measurable area. It isn't a matter of opinion. It's a matter of measurable, provable, fact.
So the Nexus One is superior in every measurable area? I take it you mean specifications? Everyone knows specifications really don't matter if the device isn't great to use and look at.
(I could do a car analogy but I won't).
What I will say is, despite a Dell laptop having better specs for less money, I'd still much rather have a MacBook.
Advertising for ALL cell phones is hamstrung, Mr Matyszczyk, especially today. ALL cell phones are currently tied (one way or another) to a particular carrier. Google's offering isn't much different, and AT&T isn't the carrier of choice for newer smart phones given it's poor 3G coverage and the problems it's had adjusting to the popularity of the iPhone. Even if you get the Nexus One unlocked, it won't work on all carriers.
Advertising for cell phones always had that elephant in the room aspect. Your article fails to even address that except peripherally. The iPhone taught a lot of people that it's not JUST the phone, but the carrier as well. At the steep prices of an iPhone contract (over the mandatory 2 years), it's also an expensive lesson. People are not apt to repeat it until there is a change in the way these phones are marketed. To wit: Untying them from carriers and letting people take their phones from one carrier to another. It would be good to offer financing for the upper end ones (the ones costing above $300.00) and have the cell company the customer selects collect that amount in their monthly bill. The cost of a phone is usually built into the carrier's terms anyhow. If that's not doable, then bill them separately. One way or another, most people aren't going to kick out more than about $200.00 on a cell phone in one chunk if it's to be marketed to the masses in today's economy. And let's not forget that the economy has ALSO played a part in smart phone sales - the formerly saturated landscape of liquid capital and disposable income has all but dried up and disappeared.
But the point here is that you completely ignored the fact that the iPhone and AT&T's network issues had a huge impact on how people perceive the worth or value of a smart phone today. Throw in the economic conditions and the fact that smart phones aren't cheap (especially an unlocked Nexus One), and you add to a slow smart phone market. That perception is something advertising can't undo. Further, most of the people today who would switch to a spendy, new smart phone are are already locked into long-term contracts - the breaking of which is even more expensive. They aren't willing to make another expensive mistake regardless of how "multifarious" the new phone may be. (Really? "Multifarious"? Was that the word of the day on your calendar or just your desire to show off a facility with sesquipedalian verbiage?).
I'd like to see Droid's sales numbers. I don't expect, given its launch timing, that they met their sales expectations. The rumor is that their sales have been slow as well. This merely supports my point that the large numbers of people who would go out and buy a new smart phone have already done so, that the economy is having a negative impact on sales and that tethering a phone to one carrier is hampering sales.
Google's current lack of advertising prowess (in your opinion) may simply be their strategy to keep the phone in the minds of the public until they can offer it on all networks, and for when the economy makes the turn for the average cell user. At that point they will have something much more unique in a more economically viable environment which may then spark the kind of advertising you seem to think they can't do.
Don't forget, nothing exists in a vacuum. There are always external factors involved. Ignoring them or glossing over them damages the credibility of the reporter. Next time, I suggest you look at the whole picture.
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Perhaps you're right. Google may not have figured this out yet.
Although Google's Nexus One did have a lot of buzz - amongst the geek community - but the people that matter (the majority of people that buy phones) don't/didn't know about it.
I agree with Norseman. Having been in print media as a graphic designer for 15 years, I can see where Apple went right, and Google went wrong. Google's approach of "it does this, and this and this" is cold and much less enticing than "look at this cool scrolling function and how many apps we have for that". While I don't like the iPhone (for it's exclusivity to AT&T), I hope that Google will allow an "open" phone that you can use with whatever carrier of choice...and at a reasonable price.
In 2007, the iPhone was very very good. In 2010, the Nexus One is average. Good, but average.
Mobile phone UI had stagnated for years. Too many nerds not enough UI designers. When Apple came along it showed how to do an excellent industry leading interface. It shook Nokia and the rest to the bones. The App Store then blazed ahead and showed people what their iPhone could do, to stunning effect.
Android however is a ME ME ME product. It's not born from the desire to be trail blazing, it's born from a desire to ape the competition.
Google are positioning themselves in the 21st century, they see the success of Apple, and want a bit of it, especially since things are so aligned with their internet connectivity.
And because they are following, rather than leading, they are nothing more than an after run.
As for the Nexus One launch, what an anti-climax. Selling the phone without a contract is not unique. You can buy contract-less phones all over the place. Calling a one page selling webpage "revolutionary" is BS.
What is more interesting is the sudden emergence of the Android tablet. Considering Apple's early sales success for a product that hasn't been launched yet, Android versions will be out at the end of the year. It's another ME ME ME product roll out. The product won't be built to be inspiring, it will be built purely to compete against another Apple product that will be disappearing into the distance.
While theoretically open, buying a Nexus One right now is no different than buying any new smartphone unlocked on ebay. It will work on either GSM or CDMA, and if your willing to pay $500 you won't have a contract.
What google SHOULD DO is make one phone that supports ALL networks. The Blackberry storm can be used on Verizon, T-mobile and AT&T, as it incorporates GSM as well for international roaming.
Free advice Google: Make ONE MODEL that works with all major carriers, sell it for $529 unlocked. If carriers want to offer discounts and rebates, that's up to them.
Anything else is simply more of the same.
They have gotten everyone to know about the phone, for example this very post is a walking advertisement for them. Getting people to know the handset. From that fact alone i would call this minimal form of advertising a full success.
Take a look at -any- tech related blog, and there are dozens of posts about it.
This is the form of advertisement power that google has, everyone i know is talking about android, and about the nexus.
Not to mention this could also be part of their ongoing plans for a future project, testing the waters so to speak.
Look at GMail. At first invite-only, no ads, new bold folderless&AJAX models, no delete. Step-by-step they corrected all problems with there initial concepts, and only after that made a major push. Now they own the market.
Same thing with Android. Anybody remembers G1? It was pathetic in comparison with iPhone and Windows Mobile, and they knew it, so they introduces it with not so big T-Mobile and didn't advertise it much. They made several new versions, accumulated new features and experience only after that they made a major push with Droid.
Same thing with Chrome & Google Docs. The same thing with new sales model. I bet that in a year or two they would transform this market.
It's kinda hard to label a phone as a Beta model, but it is!
Between the online sales, the support model, the carrier-agnostic phone (goal), the openness of the phone OS, etc, it's all trying new ways of doing things.... = BETA
It is trying to change the landscape, not compete on the old landscape, but it has to test the waters.
Interesting side note, I do not remember seeing any N1 adds since the days of the launch.
I spend a lot of time on tech and news sites, as well as on Google properties, and I haven't seen them.
Maybe they are just following Chris around? ;)
Since they said they expected to sell about 150,000, and I think I heard they made it to 135,000 in the first 74 days, it sounds like things are turning out pretty close to their plan. And that is using the bad advertising scheme they picked!
FWIW,
Ben~
While I use gmail every day, just about every competitors mail interface is better. The new Yahoo mail is great. hotmail is great, google, well its useful and they give you plenty of storage.
Office offering are even worse. Would anyone in their right mind actually use online presentation thing over power point or iWork. Are you really too cheap to spend the $100 or so dollars for a real office suite?
I keep hearing how the traditional desktop applications are dead, from people creating their posts using office, iWork, etc.
Maybe new form factors will cause different behaviors, but a computer is so far the best way to get your work done and doing things online requires awful lot of thing to work (I am sitting in a room right now where there is no wifi, so I am tethering over a bad connection).
I've had an iPhone since it came out... until the N1 came out. The N1 is superior in every measurable way. It's faster, thinner, lighter, has 2x the screen res, has a larger screen, has 1.1ghx snapdragon processor (the iphone has a mere 700mhz), more internal storage, the ability to expand to more storage than iphone (or an ipad for that matter), it is completely customizable (moving desktop images, custom icons, organization, etc), it can multitask up to 6 applications at once (iphone doesn't even do 2), it supports multi-touch and pinch-to-zoom, and it improves upon a number of the things that urked me about the iphone. For example, on an iphone when you're typing a comment like this and someone texts you - everything you're doing comes to a screeching halt.... Not so on an N1. When I get a text while I type this, no interruption. If I want, I can even switch to the text, read it, respond, and switch back to my comment without losing a word.
So, Mr. Writer-Man, perhaps before you dub something an utter failure you might try using it. I can assure you, as a long time apple fan, that the N1 craps all over my old iPhone 3gs.
Google doesn't know how to create demand at the emotional level. To do that they will need to turn to an outside agency.
- by techiefool March 21, 2010 6:38 PM PDT
- i think people are not even getting the point of why google is following this approach of open-sourcing their platform and not advertising nexus one heavily.. Google pretty much controls the platform whereas they leave the hardware aspects of it to partners such as HTC, Sony, Motorola. Owning the platform is the thing to do. And so what if Nexus one experiment fails, the models of its hardware partners are succeeding and thus its platform is becoming more and more accepted into mainstream, and besides look at how Palm failed with its strategy of taking on Apple in a copy of the entire process(owing hardware, owning design, owning software stack etc). Google has got it right and android is still growing.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (50 Comments)Also Google has been innovative in more number of ways than Apple. All Apple has done in last touch few years is introduce the touch aspect to a mobile device, Iphone is nothing but a phone in an Ipod touch, and now more of the same in IPad a giant ipod touch. look at googe. They introucted a killer search, introduced gmail with literally unlimited storage forcing other email providers to do the same, provided excellent maps and have now adapted the app market place to the enterprise(thus showing signs of adapatability). And along the way they helped Firefox improve the experience on web for all of us and bought Youtube which gets close to a 1.2 billion views. per day