Google practices marketing as a service but doesn't preach it.
This morning at the planning conference, Google’s director of North American sales, Penry Price spoke. His presentation was essentially marketing as a service. Basically Google are now offering to use data in really interesting ways to help agencies optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of their digital campaigns.
Some of the illustrations were pretty cool like using search data from up to 6 weeks in advance of a film premiere to predict opening weekend box office receipts and allow agencies to adjust their campaigns accordingly. Or being able to test various still frames for the preview window of video clips to see which get people to click to play the films more.
Great stuff but the obvious irony is that this is all being done to persuade us to spend more on interruptive media. Media that Google never use themselves, and strategies that they never employ on their own behalf.
In fact, one of their reference campaigns (perhaps not described well) was a very cynical sounding and somewhat disconnected campaign for Office Max where they apparently invaded various middle schools and told kids that they wouldn’t graduate from 8th to 9th grades unless they passed certain “tests.” The tests sounded quite appalling, reducing children to tears. This was pure exploitation of the kids for the entertainment of the viewers. What it has to do with Office Max escaped me.
UPDATE: Reader Vinny from the Escape Pod sent in an explanation of the Office Max campaign that actually makes sense:
“The idea was this: going back to school is a big event in teens’
lives. but there’s no back to school TV programming. so lets create
a TV show around that. instead of doing a carpet-bombing tv ad
campaign. at the very least it would be different.
a pre-existing relationship with Disney led us to Hollywood records (a
disney subsidiary) which led us to using teen idol Jesse McCartney,
one of their artists.
the executional idea was to prank a class of middleschoolers (we did
just one episode) into thinking they wouldn’t graduate to high school
unless they passed a series of ludicrous tests. and then just when it
gets really ludicrous, reveal it’s all a prank and reveal they’re all
getting a free concert, just for them, given by a rock star they know
and love. in addition they all got backpacks filled with cool back to
school stuff. and the school, which was woefully underfunded, got a
check for $80K.
A DVD of the with lots of musical extras was available free with $50
purchase at officemax. we got rid of every one.”
I couldn’t help being struck by the difference in the way Google markets themselves and the way they “help” other brands market themselves. Google say they want to start a dialogue.
Can we have the benefit of your brilliance applied to helping us reinvent marketing forms not just doing the same old ones better?