EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW
Google's Drew Mitchell
On the Mobilization of Brand Engagement
Drew Mitchell |
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Interviewed by Frank Smith
Managing
Editor, eBulletins
Frost & Sullivan
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Ten to the power of 100 is known as a googol to math whizzes like Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The two applied a misspelling of “googol” to the name of their search engine and thus Google was born. In just a few short years, “Googling” would be added to the dictionary, thus securing the search giant’s place in history. Taking on a concept too vast for many others to define and making it personal is just one of Google’s many strengths as a technology and business leader.
The power of personalized search continues to grow, especially with the widespread adoption of mobile phones and tablet computers. To better understand how Google is harnessing this power, Frost & Sullivan talked to Drew Mitchell, the Head of Industry for Google's Local vertical. In this position, Mitchell’s teams in San Francisco and Chicago bring Google’s marketing tools to Fortune 500 clients.
Frost & Sullivan: How are new technologies like smartphones and tablets changing brand engagement?
Drew Mitchell: Smartphones, specifically, are a transformative device taking brand engagement to the next level by really connecting people to either a local store or making a purchase decision driving them into that store. [A smartphone] allows people to make very informed decisions at the point of purchase.
At an upper-funnel standpoint, you really think about the immersive experience that tablets allow for users now. Google just did a project with some of the most iconic ad campaigns over the last thirty to forty years called
Project Re:Brief. In the sixties Volvo had a great ad campaign called, "Drive it like you hate it." It was all about how Volvo's will last forever. We re-imagined that campaign with Volvo's creative agency and created a very immersive experience via tablets where you could follow along the story of Irv Gordon who has driven his Volvo for the last forty-six years and is nearing three million miles on his Volvo.
The tablet experience allows you to see exactly where he was on a Google Map at that time, and to follow along interesting stories over the time that he's owned the car. From a pure engagement standpoint, a tablet allows you to incorporate video, a map, touchscreen, etc. in a way that a PC really has never been able to do in the past.
Frost & Sullivan: How do your mobile and tablet initiatives fit into the larger Google world?
Mitchell: In a lot of ways they're leading them. About two years ago, Eric Schmidt — when he was still CEO — [Ed. Note: Eric Schmidt is currently Google’s Executive Chairman] said that when we're developing a product we're thinking about mobile first because we know the wave of smartphone adoption and tablet adoption that is about to occur will make that be, oftentimes, people's first choice of searching for information.
When we think about things from a product development standpoint, we always consider the mobile implication and then break that down even further into how the smartphone experience is different than the tablet experience and that is different than the desktop experience. From a product development standpoint it's definitely a driving force.
In my role, we work with Fortune 500 marketers who — especially in the verticals that I cover — are very locally based. Mobile is now making up more than 30 to 35 percent of all of their website traffic and the searches that are coming to them from Google. The need for them to have a very solid, intuitive, mobile experience and even to differentiate the experience a user has on a smartphone versus a tablet is more and more important. We've done some studies that show that 40 percent of people will turn to a competitor's site if they are not hitting a mobile-optimized website. Being able to take action quickly on a smaller form factor is extremely important to users.
Generally, the thing that we talk to our advertising clients about is — "Do you have the right experience? Are you targeting people in very specific locations and giving them the messages that they need that are more relevant to someone that's in Alabama versus the Pacific Northwest." Then we make sure they're considering that targeting and experience should be different for smartphones and tablets.
Frost & Sullivan: How critical is that ability to do search targeting to create unique experiences to local campaigns?
Mitchell: Mobile has completely changed how people are able to market on a local level. Whether it's a service or it's actually getting people into a store and buying something, you want to send a different message to someone that's across the street from your store versus someone who is fifteen miles from your store.
Frost & Sullivan: So then with the variety of clients Google works with, how do mobile strategies differ for B2B versus B2C clients?
Mitchell: Mobile is still extremely important to B2B. I think there's this notion that if I'm a B2B marketer, mobile isn't as important to me because I'm not driving someone to a local store. But the reality is that — across Google as a whole — we're seeing upwards of 25 percent of all Google searches coming from mobile now. That encompasses every category.
From a B2B standpoint, you still think about how you're giving people the right information at the right time via the right device. People still want to be able to consume information if they're doing research on a B2B purchase in a form that is easy. If they're reading their smartphone while waiting for a flight to take off, it's important that they're reading a mobile-optimized site.
It's really just the difference between: 1. What audiences are you targeting? And: 2. What are you trying to deliver to the end user? I don't think either of those really differ between B2B and B2C. You have to think through all that and answer the same types of questions. Certainly your audience changes and the action you want to take changes. If I'm a restaurant I want you to book a reservation; if I'm selling jet engines I want you to call my sales people.
Frost & Sullivan: With all this talk of personalization, what is your favorite part of working at Google?
Mitchell: There are definitely a lot of things. For being a very big company now, we're not afraid to think like a startup and move very quickly and make change rapidly, whether that's with our products or internally with how we're organized. We're not afraid of acting like a really small company, and I think that keeps us fresh. Outside of that, in my role, I get to work with the largest brands in the world and have a very strategic seat at the table with them to discuss what's happening with digital marketing and what's happening with their business. That's exciting stuff.
About Drew Mitchell
Drew Mitchell is the Head of Industry for Google's Local vertical which manages Fortune 500 clients in the Home Services category. Prior to Google, Mitchell was the Director of Marketing at Hostway Corp. where he won the Business Marketing Association's Gold Tower Award for the Bob's Cube viral marketing campaign, and he was an Online Project Manager at Feeding America where he helped build and market an online donation system that allowed food manufacturers to donate more than one billion pounds of excess goods to local food banks in the system's first year of existence. Drew Mitchell will be leading a session called The Devices of Our Time: How Smartphones & Tablets Are Transforming the Way Brands Engage Customers at the
13th Annual MARKETING WORLD 2012: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, July 16-18, 2012 in Boston.
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