Google Doesn’t Do Marketing
By Anna Johnson on September 25th, 2009According to long-time technology veteran and writer Robert Cringely, Google doesn’t do marketing. It’s a company built around producing software, not marketing. Or is it?
Robert Cringely bases his view on speaking with several ex-Google personnel. Sure, there might be people employed in marketing, but when it comes to what Google actually creates, this is driven by software developers not marketers. In particular, product development appears to be driven by a process of excruciating peer review… again, by other software developers, not marketers or business executives.
Even after Google buys companies, any changes or enhancements to the products made by those companies is based on the same peer review process. Not marketing.
Accordingly, says Robert Cringely, there are no marketing deadlines and that’s why so many of Google’s releases seem to be in eternal beta. And why others disappear without a trace – before or after their release.
But how can this be? How can Google not do marketing? Isn’t it extraordinarily profitable?
Robert Cringely sums it up nicely by explaining that the reason why Google’s product developers are not beholden to anyone in marketing is because Google is an ADVERTISING company. It’s driven to create products that essentially advertise and promote Google, rather than to meet specific customer wants.
This kind of reminds me of when I worked at one of the Mars, Inc. group of companies around 10 years ago. I was in what was called the ‘Franchise’ department which in any other company would have been called the marketing department. At Mars, Inc., however, the WHOLE company was considered to be a marketing company and EVERYONE employed there was in marketing.
I’m not sure if Mars, Inc. still takes the same view and Robert Cringely is making a different point about Google. It’s interesting though.
Right now, Google’s approach seems to be working, but it’s also fraught with danger. Continue pouring so much money into non-marketing driven product development and sooner or later the stockholders may start to wonder if such ‘advertising’ is really delivering an adequate return on investment…
Source: Robert Cringely, “The People’s Republic of Google,” I, Cringely, September 10, 2009
