Why Google Pixel is putting creators at the forefront of its marketing strategy

When Ava Donaldson began working at Google nearly seven years ago, influencer marketing was an afterthought for most brands. But now, partnering with social media creators, athletes and artists has become a crucial component of the company’s marketing—particularly when it comes to the Pixel, Google’s smartphone. “[Influencers] aren’t just a marketing channel for us,” said Donaldson, senior marketing lead for global talent & creators for Google’s Devices & Services division. “The crux of a lot of our work is shifting to being social-first, talent-led and creator-driven.” Recent news: Google puts more search controls in its AI ads Ad Age World’s Largest Advertisers 2023 Ad spending, rankings and analysis for the top 100 advertisers Click here Donaldson and her team have forged partnerships with social media creators such as comedian and actor Drew Desbordes, also known as Druski; a number of athletes, including pro soccer player Megan Rapinoe and several NBA and WNBA players (Google is a sponsor of both leagues); and dozens of photographers and directors who shoot content using the Google Pixel. These partnerships serve as a key tool for building brand awareness, Donaldson said, as “a lot of the time—even now, after we've been at this for quite a long time—we’re still telling a lot of people for the first time that Google makes a phone and it’s called Pixel.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Francis Dominic ✨ Theme Parks + Travel (@francisdominiic) This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. How has Google Pixel’s approach to influencer marketing evolved over the past several years? Our creator partners really help us drive that brand awareness and they also increasingly help us with all elements of the funnel, like really helping drive sales, because influencers and creators are such trusted sources for people. I think the biggest thing that's happened over the last seven years is influencer marketing has just gotten so much more sophisticated in terms of who we partner with, how we partner and how we measure success. And we’re seeing our social-first, creator-led approach really work across both organic social and paid social. We’ve always been very invested in creators as a company—YouTube was really made to support creators—so putting creators and talent at the forefront of everything we do makes so much sense for Pixel. Who are some of the creators you’ve partnered with? Some recent examples that I think give a good taste of the spectrum of our influencer work. We're a partner of the WNBA and the NBA, and we actually yesterday launched our most recent campaign with them. It really leans into this insight that every basketball fan wants to be part of it in a big way and wants to be a player. It also leans into our partner, Druski, who is so funny and such an icon and we love working with him. He’s the face of the campaign, and it explores him going through the process of trying to be a player, a commentator, a stylist and be involved in every element of hoop culture. That work also showcases some of our athlete partners and that roster is super robust right now—you’ll see Kelsey Plum, Jimmy Butler and Giannis Antetokounmpo. View this post on Instagram A post shared by DRUSKI (@druski) Another of our influencer programs is Creator Labs, which is focused on professional artists—specifically lens-based artists, such as photographers and directors. We’ve partnered with about 30 to 35 artists on an annual basis since 2019, and that’s a program that's about pushing the boundaries of our camera and what we can produce from a photo and video standpoint. It’s also about trying to position Pixel as a legitimate tool for creating art and showing you don't need fancy camera equipment to make amazing content. We’ve also been partnering with Megan Rapinoe for the past year. The genesis of our partnership with her was, of course, to work with Megan as an athlete and really honor her within that context, but also to see what else she wanted to do and co-create a passion project with her. I think that's really one of the reasons why Megan was so stoked to work with us—that's not necessarily a position that she gets to be in. And because she’s part of the LGBTQ+ community and also such an activist for the community, she wanted to use her platform to partner with an LGBTQ+-owned business. We partnered with a jewelry brand called Automic Gold, and Megan and the founder created a necklace, and we put that in an amazing kit with our Pixel device and seeded that out to VIPs. Megan and the founder made a bunch of social content together, as well. View this post on Instagram A post shared by AL Sandimirova (@automicgold) Have you incorporated co-creation into any of your other work with creators? That trust factor has definitely grown between brands and creators. Even brands that traditionally had a lot of rules and regulations around sponsored content are becoming more and more open to co-creation. And on the Google side and on the Pixel side, we more and more have been going to creators with an open brief that’s just like, “Here's the objective, and here are the parameters to work within, but let us know what you think is cool, what will work for your channel and how we can really integrate Pixel and our features into your typical content format.” Which social platforms do you prioritize for your work with creators? One trend that we’ve really been seeing and taking note of is the diversification of platforms for creators—creators who maybe in the past have just prioritized Instagram or YouTube seeing the value and benefit of being across multiple channels and creating unique content on those channels. That’s actually something that we’re looking for on the creator side—that diversified platform set, just because it gives us the opportunity to show up in different ways. Maybe there are overlapping audiences, but it just makes sense for us to show up on multiple platforms. But in terms of our owned and operated channels, and from a brand perspective, we’re across all of the major social platforms. Does your work with creators extend beyond social media? Yes. That is really key to our strategy—that influencers are now deeply part of every part of the marketing funnel. Events and experiences have been really important to us, and activating together with influencers in person was something that we definitely missed during the height of COVID. It really does make such a difference and impact the relationship-building factor so much—not only between the brand and the creator, but also between creators and the community of creators they’re signing up to be a part of by working with us. If you have a Pixel you’re on “Team Pixel,” and that's the same whether you're a consumer who just bought the phone for the first time or you’re somebody with an online presence and are a creator partner with us. That’s super important and something that we're definitely able to land on the events and experiences side—building those relationships and making it mean something to be part of “Team Pixel.” We’re also experimenting with paid social and just understanding the landscape of paid social when it comes to influencer marketing. We’re doing a lot of tests with creator work, and it’s no surprise that it’s working—so that’s something that we’re going to continue to explore, as well. Our campaign with Druski is also an example of us having creators as part of our above-the-line marketing and as part of our video spots. We also had one of the creators we work with, Yool, cameo in our Pixel 8 video spot that dropped around Made By Google. So, we're definitely sprinkling in creators and testing out creators in new spaces. View this post on Instagram A post shared by YOOL® (@yoolwxnder) We’ve been seeing a lot of success with both upgrading creators’ content into dedicated paid social that we’re running on our own platforms as well as boosting their content. So, we’re continuing to experiment with that. Do you work with creators on more of a long-term basis, or are you often bringing on new creators? Our desired state is to really build long-term relationships with our creator partners and talent partners, and there are many examples of us doing that. For example, Giannis has been an organic Pixel user since 2021, so the relationship with him came about totally organically through his personal use of the device. And we've been with him for almost two years now. Same with Druski—we’ve been working with him, Kelsey Plum, Jalen Green, Candice Parker and many of our WNBA and NBA athletes for the past few years since we started our league sponsorship. Our Creator Labs artists, as well—we’ve been working with the same crew, for the most part, since 2019. But it’s a balance for us as well, especially as all of these new, emerging social platforms come out. We want to make sure that we're balancing what works with our dedicated partners and also leaving room for innovation and trying new things. For us, in a perfect world, we're building more of these long-term partnerships. That's where the industry is going across the board, and that's normally the step that we take, too, while leaving that space for a little innovation. How do you find new creators to work with? It’s such a mixed bag. We feel very privileged that two things are sort of naturally happening. There are more and more organic users of Pixel out in the world that we can either discover ourselves and sort of build on an organic conversation that's based on passion around the product. Or, other people are starting to take notice of our investment in music and sports, and agents and athletes are coming to us directly to say, “We want to work together. Let's figure this out.” For social creators, there’s also a level of us just having to be aware of who's popping off on TikTok, on YouTube—a level of awareness and due diligence that we do ourselves as marketers and that our agency partners do to understand “what is the social landscape like and who makes sense to innovate and partner with?” Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs How do you measure the success and return on investment of your influencer partnerships? I feel like with marketing, it's such an art and a science and both sides are equally important. We're of course tracking all of the traditional metrics—looking across awareness, consideration, etc.—and I think one very strong example that speaks to the power of creator content and its impact is that we've seen so much success with YouTube creators. Because our phone is a step change for many people or they’re not familiar with Pixel, I feel like that channel really allows for a deeper dive into our ownable features. YouTube has been so effective in terms of creators being able to explain the benefits of Pixel in their signature content format. With our YouTube work, we’re also able to leverage brand lift studies, and that allows us to actually check consideration and have that data—and we’re seeing that creators’ content is actually five times more impactful in driving consideration versus traditional media platforms, which is just insane. That’s the science side. Then, there are the amazing moments that you could never have anticipated or planned. I’m so proud of Mayan Toledano, and the fact that an artist loved the work that she created on Pixel so much that once she decided to create an art book with Damiani out of her Creator Labs work. It just absolutely blows my mind. When artists just feel so passionately about the brand and the program and then also just feel so good about the content that they’ve been allowed to create with very limited sort of creative guidelines, I think that sort of speaks to the art side of measurement.

Why Google Pixel is putting creators at the forefront of its marketing strategy

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