The Internship is great, a funny film well-worth seeing by anyone who likes underdog stories. But one thing that wasn't an underdog was Google itself. It won throughout the movie. I got to view the film during a press screening on Thursday. It's easy to imagine that many will come away from the movie thinking that Google is the greatest place to work, produces fantastic products and is focused on making the world better. And if you didn't get that last point, without giving too much away, it'll be stated, at the end. For those not up on the plot, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson play two [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Marketing | Google: The Internship Movie | Top News

Google has been inching closer to opening its own retail stores for the past three years. It opened a Google schwag store on its own Mountain View campus in 2010. Then it tested a “store within a store” or "pop up store" concept in London, called “The Chromezone,” to sell Chromebooks for holiday 2011. In 2012, Google sent a supply of Chromebooks to BestBuy in the US and Dixon's in the UK to create an offline retail presence for the product. In addition, last year, Google was running a novel promotion with Virgin America at several US airports. Users got to try out Chromebooks on Vir [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content Marketing | Google: Business Issues | Google: Chrome | Google: Google Play | Google: Marketing | Google: Mobile | Google: Nexus | Top News

The Baltimore Ravens just beat the San Francisco 49ers to win Super Bowl XLVII in a game that came down to the final seconds. But online, the social network showdown belonged to Twitter in a dominating win over Facebook, Google+ and all other social networks. According to my count, Twitter was mentioned in 26 of 52 national TV commercials -- that's 50 percent of the spots that aired during CBS' game coverage. Facebook was mentioned in only four of those commercials -- about eight percent. Google+, which is reportedly the No. 2 social network in the world, wasn't mentioned at all. YouTube [...]

Related Topics: Branding | Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: Instagram | Facebook: Marketing | Facebook: Pages | Features & Analysis | Google | Google: Google+ | Google: Marketing | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Marketing: Hashtags | Statistics: General | Statistics: Social Media | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Marketing

Fortune Magazine released their annual best companies to work for list, and Google is number one on the list again, four years running. Google took the number one spot because, as the magazine writes: The Internet juggernaut takes the Best Companies crown for the fourth time, and not just for the 100,000 hours of free massages it doled out in 2012. New this year are three wellness centers and a seven-acre sports complex, which includes a roller hockey rink; courts for basketball, bocce, and shuffle ball; and horseshoe pits. Facebook is not on the 100 list but Microsoft is and ranks number [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: Marketing

Google videos were shared nearly 5.9 million times in 2012, making it the most shared video brand of the year according to Unruly Media's 2012 Social Video Share Index. Google ranked seventh in the 2011 index, and Unruly Media credits this year's jump to Google's success with its Project Glass: One day... video, the video that Google released in the spring to introduce how consumers might some day use the Google Glass product. (see below) Google videos were shared almost 200 percent more often this year than in 2011. Nike ranks second on Unruly Media's list with about 5.5 million video s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Features & Analysis | Google | Google: Glass | Google: Marketing | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Social Media | Top News | Video

The foundation for every Google Display Network (GDN) strategy is placements. It doesn’t matter what campaign settings you use or how you set your campaigns up (keywords, topics, interest targeting, remarketing, managed placements), you will still optimize and base your success on the relevancy and performance of the placements where Google showed your ads. I have a terrible confession to make. I have never worked with any agency, company or individual that wasn’t using too many placement exclusions. There, I said it. But after today, there will be no more excuses and Google Disp [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising | Display Advertising Column | Google: Marketing

Today Google announced a new product to the world: Google Tag Manager. It is an extremely important addition to marketers, as it allows them to add or remove tags used for marketing and measurement without the need to ask from webmasters to change the website code. According to the Google Tag Manager help center: Google Tag Manager allows you to conveniently manage tags (such as tracking and marketing optimization tags) on your site. You can add and update AdWords, Google Analytics, Floodlight and non-Google tags from the Google Tag Manager user interface instead of editing site code. This re [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Google | Google: Analytics | Google: Display Advertising | Google: Marketing | Top News

Millward Brown has released the 2012 BrandZ Top 100 Brands report and topping the list is Apple, followed by Google at number three and Microsoft at number five. In fact, four of the top five are technology companies, with McDonalds at number four. Facebook is now number 19 on the list, improving 16 positons from last year. Chinese search engine, Baidu jumped four positons to number 25. To learn more about how these top brands are ranked, see their ranking methodology. Here is their infographic: [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Branding | Channel: Industry | Facebook: Marketing | Google: Marketing | Microsoft: Business Issues | Statistics: Popularity & Usage

Earlier this week Google launched the "Mobile Playbook," a manifesto of sorts that seeks to explain mobile and why it's now critical for all marketers to embrace the channel in earnest. Designed to be succinct but comprehensive the document is full of data, anecdotes and case studies that illustrate why it's so important to have a mobile strategy, website and/or app. Subtitled "The Busy Executive's Guide to Winning with Mobile," the document aims to accelerate the embrace of mobile marketing adoption and optimization among companies that have thus far been slow on the uptake. In ad [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Android | Google: Marketing | Google: Mobile

Google is well-known for its "Don't Be Evil" motto, one that has lately somewhat plagued the company as it has come under fire over privacy, anti-trust and other issues. Was today's public letter from CEO Larry Page an abandonment of that, in favor of a more achievable goal of wanting to be loved? The Problem With "Don't Be Evil" Last February, my On Google & Being “Evil” piece explained how Google's unofficial motto came about and how it effectively positioned Google against other companies, as if those other companies were evil. Indeed, Google did see other companies such [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: Marketing

Google has announced a new product named Google Consumer Surveys. It is Google's version of offering market research in a "fast, accurate, and affordable" manner. You can create a fast survey and within minutes already get responses from people all over the world. Google works with publishers to embed these surveys on their sites, almost like they do with ads, and pay publishers a percentage of what Google charges the business for the survey. Saturday, I received an email from a friend asking me about an ad they saw on synonym.com. It wasn't an ad, but it seemed to be powered by Google. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Consumer Surveys | Google: Display Advertising | Google: Marketing

Those TV ads that Google has been running lately are costing the company a pretty penny ... well, millions of pretty pennies, to be more accurate. According to a Wall Street Journal article, which cites data from Kantar Media, Google spent some $70 million dollars on TV ads last year in the U.S. alone. That represents about one-third of the estimated $213 million that Google spent promoting its own products and services in 2011. That $213 million figure is almost 400 percent more than Google's estimated $56 million spend in 2010. The majority of Google's ad spending was for online ad [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: Google+ | Google: Marketing | Top News

There were questions over the weekend about how well iPad sales were going. For example, on Friday gadget blog BGR asked iPad launch day: Where are all the sell-outs? On a conference call this morning about Apple's just-announced stock dividend, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “We had a record weekend and we’re thrilled with it.” People immediately wondered what that meant in terms of actual sales. Around 4:00 pm Eastern Apple answered the question, announcing that it had sold three million iPads between Friday and today. Three-Million iPad Weekend Three million iPads is roughly 3X more th [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Google: Google Play | Google: Marketing | Google: Mobile | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Mobile | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Top News

Fire your marketing department! Social media is free! Have you heard the news? It’s been trumpeted recently in no end of misleading, link-baity headlines such as these: P&G To Lay Off 1,600 After Discovering It's Free To Advertise On Facebook P&G slashes marketers in lieu of free social media P&G CEO Discovers Social Media Marketing Is Free! P&G to cut 1600 staff after CEO discovers digital media is free‎ In Internet marketing, "free" is a dirty enough word to be a serious deterrent to email delivery when used in a subject line. Apparently, this doesn't hold [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising | Facebook | Facebook: Marketing | Google | Google: Marketing | Search Marketing | Social Media Marketing Column

Earlier this month, Google did a post to bust myths that it felt were being spread about the company regarding privacy. First on the list was from an ad run against Google by FairSearch. Google even later updated its post to say the FairSearch ad had been pulled as  "inaccurate." As it turns out, the ad wasn't pulled as Google claimed, even though I'd agree it was inaccurate. It's been quite the bouncing ball I've had to follow in order to clear all this up. Come along, and I'll explain what happened. Google's Myth Busting Post Here's the original Google post: The arrow marked 1 point [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Features & Analysis | Google: Legal | Google: Marketing | Google: Privacy | Top News

Over the past couple of years there have been various stories about Google following in Apple or Microsoft's footsteps and opening retail stores. Adding fuel to that fire, last year the company opened a pop-up "store within a store" to sell Chromebooks in London. There were suggestions that if all went well Google might pursue a full-blown retail strategy. Earlier today several news outlets reported that a new Google retail store would be housed in Google's European Headquarters in Dublin. Reportedly it will occupy roughly 1,323 square feet of space in that facility. The plan calls for the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Google: Marketing

While most Super Bowl viewers were concentrating on the Giants-Patriots final score, we were tallying up a different score -- call it the Social Network Bowl, if you want -- and the final score was just as close as in the real game. Based on my informal tracking, Twitter and Facebook shared equal visibility during the Super Bowl, being mentioned in eight commercials each. And both of them skunked Google+, which wasn't mentioned at all during any Super Bowl ads. Out of 59 total commercials -- that's my unofficial count beginning with kickoff and ending when time ran out in the fourth [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: Marketing | Facebook: Pages | Features & Analysis | Google | Google: Google+ | Google: Marketing | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Marketing: Hashtags | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Marketing

Is Google, which has largely enjoyed a reputation as a trustworthy, wacky and fun company now gaining a new reputation, as something to be feared? When comedian Steve Martin pokes at your privacy policy, when anti-Google graffiti starts turning up and Google "conspiracies" get mentioned on lovable Zooey Deschanel's "New Girl" sitcom, maybe something's up. To Date, The Public Loves Google No doubt, many in the technosphere or with media companies have long viewed Google as a company to be wary of, if not outright feared. But that fear simply hasn't been reflected among people in general. Con [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Features & Analysis | Google: Business Issues | Google: Legal | Google: Marketing | Top News

Over the holiday break, Google did some serious traditional TV advertising to help promote Google+. CNet said this showed how desperate Google is to get people onto their social network - that they would go this far to promote the social networking site. As Steven Levy writes, despite Google using traditional advertising means, they still do it in an untraditional way. In one of the holiday commercials, they features The Muppets participating in a Google+ Hangout. The use of the Muppets in this commercial goes deeper than using likable characters that people can relate to. It [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Google+ | Google: Marketing | Top News