When you are the Chief Business Officer of a search engine giant, people naturally assume that responding to a volley of questions instantly is part of the job mandate.
So on Tuesday, when Mr Nikesh Arora, Senior Vice-President and Chief Business Officer of Google Inc, nudged a packed hall at AdAsia 2011 to ask questions – in a typical search engine style – gleeful audiences were only too willing to throw all sorts of posers.
Why is Google “harming” the world, ending all creativity? What went wrong with Google Plus? After search, what? Why had Google “copied” Facebook instead of finding its own creative solutions in the social networking space? The questions flew thick and fast. Of course, there were the usual suspects – questions on China market, Motorola, Google TV, branding, and, yes, Google Plus.
The Google honcho took most of it in his stride, and then proceeded to blunt the offensive over the next 30 minutes. “Google Plus started only three months ago and it has 40 million users today. How many can do that,” he shot back.
Google Plus, he argued, was not about competing with other social networks. “For us, it is a new incarnation of the Web. Everything is going to be social,” he said terming the social media as a “marathon rather than a sprint”. He then talked of how transformation in the digital space will prompt a rethink among marketers. “We are moving from ‘Web of information' to ‘Web of people'. People no longer want to be anonymous, they want to be represented on Facebook, on Google Plus,” said Mr Arora.
At the same time, ubiquitous devices (such as mobiles and tablets) and broadband connectivity have cleared the decks for ‘programming on demand', which, in turn, will require marketers to customise ad campaigns for individual viewers. Advertisers now have to figure out ways to customise their campaign for 10 million people who are watching a programme at different points of time, he said.
“So while we have one global audience, we will go to an audience of one,” he pointed out.
Mr Arora further noted that technology companies were now amongst the world's most powerful brands, though typically they spend less on brand building than other traditional sectors. “It is the user experience that now dictates the love for a brand…products are starting conversations…The world is moving from brand awareness to brand engagement,” he said. Going forward, every industry will require an underpinning of technology, he concluded.
Are our digital marketers listening?