It’s great to be able to see some of Google’s projects before they’re released for beta testing. But how will these new projects work with their existing services to help our clients?
That’s why John Grudnowski, our Media Director, asked them to hold a live event for our staff. They gave us a helpful, insightful walkthrough of what’s going on at Google.
We split into two sessions, one for “Advertising” and one for “Tech.” The Ad session focused on educating our Accounts and Strategies teams on Google products, with good direction on how to think about applying these products in our client projects.
“What continues to make space150 special, of course, is our integration of creative and technology,” said Lori Yeager, Vice President of space150. “But that means we have to build on our traditional ad agency experience to leverage the technical side. The Google event was really inspiring.”
The Tech session brought our tech and creative tech employees together for some nitty-gritty detail on Google technology. Two Google engineers spoke about integrating it into our creative.
“It was exciting to see what’s coming next from Google,” said Marc Jensen, space150’s Director of Technology. “They have a great technology platform, and we’re always looking for the next creative way to leverage it.”
One of our favorite challenges at space150 is getting creative with technology—and letting a new technology lead to our creative. Google aimed this event straight at that challenge. We thought it was a bull’s-eye. It’s always great to have a chance to play around with new tech in person, and to get ideas about how to use it from the people developing it.
Uh, did I miss something? The teaser link said; “How does our alpha partnership with Google help our clients? See what Google taught us.”
But unfortunately when I get in to the substance of the article, it’s just boasting, self-congratulations and once again talking about how innvoative, technologically savvy, and forward thinking you think your design firm is.
What did you learn and how does it help your clients?
I think I know what you folks are trying to do. But it comes across poorly – I hate to use the word but it’s the poseur’s approach.
Take a look at some of these agency/industry blogs for some ideas; http://plannersphere.pbwiki.com/ http://fallontrendpoint.blogspot.com/ http://www.philipgreenfield.com/ http://www.ciceron.com/ http://cuene.typepad.com/ http://garethkay.com/
Yeah, I’m with Chavez a little bit. What did Google teach you? I understand you might have a non-disclosure agreement, so you should say so frankly. Are you going to be Google Search Appliance pushers or Analytics advisors, or what?
Thanks for your comments. I agree that we could add a bit more spice to the post. I’ll try to answer your question.
The visit was a mutual idea between space150 media and Google to help space150 account, strategy, tech and creative teams throughout internal ideation processes. Topics ranged from usage of Google technology to introducing upcoming ad distribution opportunities. The hope was to elevate opportunity with Google in planning and concepting stages.
The largest effects seen thus far on client work are in technology and media:
From a technology perspective, yes, we work with the Google search appliance and have implemented and used their analytics tool for many clients. Our relationship goes much deeper than just that. We have access and directly collaborate with their engineers to better leverage existing backend and client side technology. This impacts clients in a number of ways from enhanced internal search, to analytics, to commerce, to optimizing landing pages, to widgets, to usage of Google applications, etc. Google technology is certainly not exclusive to space150, nor should it be. Google also does a great job summarizing these opportunities in their communication once public. We’ve been fortunate to share ideas early, collaborate directly with the source, and take advantage of technical betas.
The advertising/media side relates more specifically to my role at space150 and to the Google Visit detailed in the post. Through our relationship with Google, we often are white-listed to participate in specific advertising channels before they become public, or during invitation-only stages of the product. Synched from the origin of the creative idea, these channels can propel client communication further due to typically limited competition.
When factoring in our similar relationship with Yahoo, we’ve been the first worldwide advertiser to launch specific beta channels, been the first within industry verticals to participate in effectiveness studies across platforms and are currently up and running on many of the recently announced beta opportunities. The benefit to clients come from enhanced distribution and more effective advertising.
I hope this helps answer your question and thanks again for your comments.
John Grudnowski Media Director