Why College Athletes Are a Co-Branding Gold Mine

Why College Athletes Are a Co-Branding Gold Mine

by Jane Smith Branding

As college athletes have been appearing increasingly in the marketing world, it is clear that the landscape of sports marketing has shifted completely. No longer are these athletes limited to the exposure and branding that their universities allowed for; instead, they now have the freedom to enter into deals with outside businesses to promote their own image and personal brand. As an athlete myself, I have observed the significant changes brought about by NIL, both within my own experiences and through the journeys of my fellow teammates.

What Is NIL?

So, what exactly is NIL? Standing for name, image, and likeness, it acts on how college athletes can now receive compensation for representing different marketing promoters. This new and fresh effect of NIL rights on the marketing environment is apparent, according to a Forbes piece “How Brands and College Athletes Can Navigate Name, Image, and Likeness Marketing.” The article emphasizes the enormous potential for marketers and athletes to form successful partnerships and negotiate this new setting.  College athletes are now empowered to associate themselves with businesses that share their beliefs and objectives because they have influence over the personal brand journeys they take. This not only improves their reputation and relationship with fans, but it also gives businesses a special chance to capitalize on the zeal and power of collegiate athletes, boosting their marketing initiatives. The article encourages both businesses and athletes to think about long-term goals and mutually beneficial relationships, highlighting the significance of authenticity when handling NIL marketing. This is consistent with my experience as an athlete who has seen the transforming benefits of NIL on prospects for personal branding and marketing.

My Experience

Being an athlete, I have been educated about the appeal and gain that one could acquire by signing with a brand. From seeing Angel Reese becoming the highest paid athlete to a few of my own teammates make a steady income, it gives a lot of hope for the future and what one could potentially accomplish. Athletes now have more control over their personal brand image thanks to their capacity to bargain endorsement deals and explore brand collaborations. I have had the privilege of witnessing my teammate, Jack Dalhgren, a talented swimmer, be endorsed by TallSlim Tees. Even though it doesn’t directly correlate with swimming, he has been a loyal customer of TallSlim Tee’s for quite some time. Essentially, he is responsible for posting on various media platforms promoting TallSlim Tee’s to reach his audience and represent their brand. Fortunately, I help run his social media accounts to help boost his image and likeness. Part of my job is to keep up with trends on TikTok or come up with an original post to assist his success within the company. It not only has allowed him to enhance his personal brand and connect with his followers, but to expand his brand. His partnership has inspired not only me, but also other swimmers and athletes to pursue goals of potentially creating deals.

Traditionally, brand deals were dealt to professional athletes or established celebrities. However, the introduction of NIL opens up a world of possibilities and dives into the wealth of untapped talent. By offering these individuals to promote their products and services, it is an effortless way to increase visibility and awareness which leads to remarkable success on both sides of the parties.

As athletes continue to showcase their talents and skill sets, their likeliness from fans grows exponentially. This creates a fantastic opportunity for athletes to leverage their personal brand and connect with business for mutually beneficial marketing partnerships. Working with college players also adds a touch of sincerity and relatability to marketing projects. Athletes serve as role models by exemplifying commitment, tenacity, and cooperation. Their recommendation can have a substantial impact on how customers behave and what they decide to buy. Businesses can make use of this impact to expand their clientele and boost their reputation.

What Brands Should Do

So, what can your business do to start their first or expand on co-branding with college athletes?

  • Familiarize yourself with the landscape! Get comfortable with the rules within NCAA, NAIA, etc. This will help navigate the process effectively.
  • Target the type of athletes you want representing your brand. Take a deep dive on athletes’ values, target audience, and overall goals for your company.
  • Start reaching out and engaging in conversation. Set clear objectives that will be beneficial for all.
  • Be transparent and straightforward about your intentions.
  • Keep it fun!

Overall, the rise of NIL rights for athletes has ushered in a new era of marketing opportunities for both players and companies. Athletes now have the freedom to manage their own brand journeys, forming alliances that are consistent with their goals and values. Due to this development, businesses now have an excellent opportunity to capitalize on the allure and impact of college athletes, build fervent fan bases, and increase the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. Personally, I am eager to witness NIL’s continuous development and influence.

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How Businesses Are Building Their Brands through “Squid Game”

How Businesses Are Building Their Brands through “Squid Game”

by Max Petrungaro Advertising Branding Marketing

White slip-on Vans have never been so cool. And red light green light? For fans of Netflix’s Korean-language series “Squid Game,” winning that simple childhood contest just took on a whole new meaning. Though it only launched on September 17, “Squid Game” has quickly become Netflix’s most-watched series—ever. Mining themes of economic disparity and the survival instinct, “Squid Game” sets up a disturbing premise: a group of hopelessly indebted people in South Korea are invited to join a tournament of six children’s games to win a pot of cash. The catch? Losers are eliminated—but as the contestants soon find out, that doesn’t mean they just get to take their ball and go home. They are killed off, with the surviving players competing for increasing shares of the loot. Spoiler alert: there will be blood.

 

And audiences don’t seem to mind. Netflix has shared that in the first four weeks after the show’s drop, 142 million households had already tuned in to the dark drama. As early as October 3, Forbes was reporting that “Squid Game” was the number-one Netflix show in a whopping 90 countries. That’s a lot of eyeballs, and the show’s global appeal naturally opened up a huge playing field for businesses to create interesting marketing strategies around the show. But because Netflix doesn’t offer brands an opportunity to run commercials, advertisers have had to figure out some creative ways to tap into this juggernaut. Let’s take a closer look.

Examples of Brands Capitalizing on “Squid Game”

Some brands haven’t had to do much but enjoy the ride. Vans, for example, hasn’t paid for any product placement. But in the show, game contestants are given teal tracksuits and white slip-on shoes to wear during the tournament, a costume that has turned out to be insanely lucrative for Vans. In the two weeks after “Squid Game’s” launch, the American shoe and apparel company reported a jaw-dropping 7,800 percent jump in sales, probably fueled at least in part by a 97 percent increase in online searches for  “white slip-on.”

Other brands have had to be a bit more proactive. Nutter Butter took to Twitter, superimposing its cookie on a “Squid Game” guard’s head and insisting that “We want Nut Game.”

 

Also on Twitter, Heineken used its red star-shaped logo in a nod to one of the show’s tournament games, one in which players, not yet knowing the game rules, choose one shape from a selection of four.

 

They must then extract that shape from where it has been stamped into a “dalgona,” or sugar candy (“The best pick,” Heineken crowed in reference to the star). And Pepsi latched onto the sweet and deadly game with an Instagram post featuring its logo carved into a sugary disk.

Embracing a star from the series has been another way to connect with the show. Louis Vuitton recently announced “Squid Game” actress Ho Yeon Jung as a company brand ambassador. The luxury brand is tapping into her burgeoning popularity on social media channels like Instagram. For context, when the show launched in September, Ho Yeon had 40,000 Instagram followers. Just three weeks later, that number had leapt to 19.1 million. Louis Vuitton clearly took note, and took action, a choice that’s paid off: Ho Yeon’s first post as ambassador earned more than seven million likes in the first few days.

Meanwhile, Netflix, no slouch in the promotions department, has made the savvy move of partnering with another corporate powerhouse — Walmart— to sell merchandise for a number of popular streaming shows including, natch, “Squid Game.” A dedicated digital storefront for Netflix, created by Walmart, is a natural go-to for consumers looking for merch associated with the show: everything from the white numbered tee-shirts worn by “Squid Game” contestants to knit beanies and mugs. This even as Netflix maintains its own line of apparel fans can customize with “designs inspired by the show.”

Lessons Learned

What might your brand take away from the whole “Squid Game” phenom? We suggest that in the face of any hot trend, you:

  • Act quickly. These businesses jumped in right away to capitalize on the buzz appeal of “Squid Game,” timing their marketing with the media frenzy building around the show. Had they waited too long, their marketing would have seemed stale and tired. But by acting quickly, brands like Heineken came across as relevant and cool.
  • Pay attention to your tone. “Squid Game,” despite its popularity, is a violent show that might not be for everyone. The brands discussed above figured out how to strike the right tone with their ads—in this case, content that didn’t skew too dark while still being recognizable as being inspired by the series.
  • Trust your audience—and recognize that you don’t have to reach everyone. The visually appealing ads, such as the Pepsi cut-out, come with zero explanation. But if you are a fan of “Squid Game,” you automatically understand the ad’s inside reference to one of the major plotlines. Pepsi trusted “Squid Game” fans to get the joke, even as they accepted that the ads would probably go over the heads of people who hadn’t seen the show.
  • Align with another brand if it makes sense. Netflix’s partnership with Walmart means that “Squid Game” merch reaches a wider audience. Both brands benefit if those beanies fly off the shelves. Likewise, Louis Vuitton’s connection with one of the show’s stars demonstrates relevance—and represents a mutually beneficial partnership.

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How to Market to Gen X

How to Market to Gen X

by Héctor Ariza Advertising Branding

Generation X is often overlooked as businesses focus on the surging Millennial and Gen Z populations. Moreover, squeezed as it is between two massive generations — Boomers and Millennials — Gen X has sometimes been mistakenly viewed as being small in size, ergo less powerful. But Gen X still comprises a large segment of the population, and Gen Xers possess spending power. What sets them apart from other generations, and how should brands market to them online?

Who Is Gen X?

The fourth-largest U.S. generation behind Millennials, Baby Boomers, and Gen Z, Gen X encompasses Americans born between the mid-1960s and 1980. And Gen X is projected to surpass Baby Boomers in size by 2028.

What Are Some Notable Characteristics of Gen X?

Gen Xers have a reputation for being hard to pin down. This is perhaps because there’s a split in the generation, with older Gen Xers possessing some of the characteristics of their Baby Boomer forebears (digitally savvy, but not born into digital the way subsequent generations have been), and younger members of Gen X displaying Millennial tendencies (their mobile usage is similar to Millennials, for example). Moreover, this is a generation that prides itself on individuality — which can make it challenging for brands hoping to hone in on a “type.” But common denominators still exist across the generation, namely:

  • Reliance on digital. Even after seeing a television commercial or print ad, Gen Xers tend to turn to the internet to perform further research. And they love social media; a whopping 95 percent of this generation engages with Facebook.
  • Brand loyalty. Small Biz Technology notes that Gen Xers are likely to spend more on brands that “give back.” And according to eMarketer, when Gen Xers develop an affinity for a product, they are willing to pay a premium.

How Should Brands Market to Gen X?

What is the best way for brands to reach out to Gen X? We recommend that you:

  • Understand where they live online — and meet them there. As noted above, Facebook is popular with Gen X. So is YouTube. Paid advertising works, of course. But brands might also create content that draw Gen Xers in with educational information or even nostalgia  — because every generation loves a little throwback. In the case of Gen X, there’s a rich vein to mine: the 1970s, with all the possibilities that era represents in terms of pop culture, music, fashion, and more.
  • Offer rewards, coupons, and loyalty programs. This is a generation that remembers the Great Recession, and doesn’t have faith that Social Security will be around when they retire. And as noted earlier, they shoulder some debt. Reach out with opportunities to save, and this generation will listen.
  • Do good. As noted above, Gen X responds to brands that demonstrate a commitment to society or the environment.
  • Understand that for Gen Xers, status is less important. This is a generational feature that Ford Motor Company figured out years ago. As far back as 2016, Omar Odeh, a Ford Explorer marketing manager, observed to Forbes, “[Gen Xers are] less likely to have to put their wealth on status. They don’t necessarily have to buy that premium brand. They will look at value for money and performance.”
  • Think mobile. According to eMarketer, 88.5 percent of this generation use smartphones. Reach out to this group through mobile devices, and make sure your website is mobile-friendly.
  • Keep communications short and to the point. Immersed in raising kids and building careers, this generation puts a value on time — and has little patience for perceived time-wasters.
  • Give them some love. According to Big Commerce, 54 percent of Gen Xers “are frustrated that brands constantly ignore them.”

Contact True Interactive

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How Brands Are Succeeding with Voice Technology in 2020

How Brands Are Succeeding with Voice Technology in 2020

by Taylor Hart Branding

In December, I predicted that voice search would become smarter and more useful in 2020: “I continue to see more people using their voices to find things with their smart speakers, phones, and in-car devices,” I wrote. “But what’s changing is that people are getting more comfortable buying things, not just searching for things, with their voices.” Of course, I had no idea that a global pandemic was about to radically change our behavior, including how we use voice assistants. Let’s take a closer look at what’s been happening during the first half of 2020.

Voice Assistants Are Gaining Even More Currency

The pandemic has moved the needle when it comes to consumer openness to voice assistants. The Wall Street Journal reported,

Euromonitor earlier this year noted that consumers were buying more AI-enabled home appliances and virtual assistants, like Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa. But now, such devices have a new draw, says [head of Euromonitor’s lifestyle research Alison] Angus. “Voice-control technology limits the need to touch surfaces so much, so that’s why they are appealing,” she says.

Though states are starting to lift COVID-19-related restrictions, many consumers will remain cautious. Concerns about health and safety going forward will make voice’s touch-free nature ever more attractive.

Voice Assistants Are Increasingly Becoming An Integral Part of Daily Life

In a national survey published by Edison Research and NPR, 1,660 adults across the United States were asked about their use of voice assistants. As Voicebot.ai reports, the survey demonstrated that during the COVID-19 pandemic, voice assistant usage jumped: results reveal that more than 50 percent of smart device owners are using voice commands at least once a day now—an uptick that occurred between the start of 2020 and the beginning of April. At the same time, there is a drop in the number of people who are using voice commands less frequently. Habits are indeed changing, and the change started during the era of COVID-19.

Voicebot.ai also reports that:

  • In 2019, smart speaker owners used voice requests for an average of 9.4 different tasks a week. In 2020, that number has inched up to 10.8 different tasks.
  • Fifty-nine percent of smart speaker owners who also own a smartphone voice assistant perform different voice-related tasks with each device.

Changes in work/commuting habits during the pandemic have also informed voice assistant usage. “With tens of millions of Americans no longer commuting, smart speakers are becoming even more important as a conduit for news and information,” Tom Webster, Edison Research senior vice president, said. He believes those habits will persist, and evolve, noting that “this increased usage and facility with voice assistants will likely increase demand for this technology in vehicles once our commutes resume.”

The Business Response

Some businesses are reading the tea leaves and responding by making voice an ever more useful utility:

  • Snapchat, for example, will be rolling out a new way to sort through the million+ augmented reality (AR) Lenses that Snap makes available through its Lens Studio platform. As TechCrunch reports, “the app’s new voice search will allow Snapchat users to ask the app to help it surface [Lenses] that enable them to do something unique.” Potential applications here could range wide: imagine asking Snap to show what you will look like wearing a particular brand of makeup, say, or how a specific television might look on your wall.
  • Google, meanwhile, has launched a new voice assistant called Diya. Diya’s mandate? To help kids learn to read. According to Voicebot.ai, Diya is part of a new educational app for Android, Read Along, that aims to help parents home-schooling their kids during the COVID-19 shelter in place. Diya “listens” to kids read, correcting errors and offering encouragement and congratulations. Students can also ask Diya for help pronouncing words they don’t know how to say.
  • For Dunkin’ Brands, having a voice search strategy was already a priority at the beginning of 2020. Then the pandemic hit. Coronavirus changed the rules for food and beverage availability, and as Ad Age notes, “Dunkin’ saw a 10x rise in people using voice to search for open locations with access points like drive-through, delivery or curbside pickup.” The company adjusted to the new normal, tailoring its paid online search results to respond effectively to the uptick in voice requests. As Keith Lusby, VP of media at Dunkin’, noted, consumers were often already driving when they made their request, and couldn’t type on their phones to determine whether a nearby location could in fact serve them. “When you think about our business pre-COVID, it was nice to know when I got to the store and they had a drive-through,” Lusby says, “but now it’s determining whether I go or not. We were able to modify our results to make sure we matched what the person was looking for.”

What You Should Do

Lusby’s comment is a perceptive one, and echoes what we’ve discussed on our own blog. Brands looking to optimize voice in ads and websites will want to evaluate typical voice search queries and pay attention to the conversational text that occurs. As Lusby notes, “That’s our view of voice—meet the customer; they’re giving us more info, so let’s give them a better result.”

But how to achieve this? To begin with, advertisers want to pay attention to the nature of conversation, which tends to be more complicated than the verbiage used in a simple Google search. In short, people express themselves differently in voice search than they do in Google searches. Google searches are more brusque. Advertisers hoping to connect well with voice searches will want to write copy consistent with how people speak. “Who,” “What,” Where,” “When,” “Why,” and “How” are great words to focus on. Queries that include natural phrases such as “near me” or “can I get the number for” can also be useful/telling. In the end, sites or copy that match conversational tone are likely to help brands looking for hits from voice-based searches.

Finally, consider how you might use voice to improve the customer experience overall. As brands like Dunkin’ demonstrate, businesses can use voice technology to create a more pleasant customer experience as people continue to look for ways to avoid touching screens.

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The Big Trend in Voice for 2020: Voice Assistants Get Personality

The Big Trend in Voice for 2020: Voice Assistants Get Personality

by Taylor Hart Branding

Where is voice technology headed in 2020? That’s the question on the minds of businesses and technologists as the annual CES show gets under way in Las Vegas. I believe the answer is that voice-enabled devices will get more personality, making voice technology more approachable — and encouraging businesses to embrace sonic branding.

The Rise of Voice Search

I’ve written often about the rise of voice search. I continue to see more people using their voices to find things with their smart speakers, phones, and in-car devices. The fact that more consumers are adopting voice-enabled devices is beyond debate – but just to remind you how popular voice-based products have become, allow me to direct you to an insight from Statistica about the growth of smart speakers (which are just one type of voice-enabled product):

As consumers have become increasingly open to the idea of integrating smart technology into their households, smart speaker sales revenue has skyrocketed, growing from around 900 million in 2016 to nearly 12 billion in 2019. Growth in the smart speaker market is increasing at a faster rate than that of other smart home devices, which shows that people trust the technology and find it easy to adopt. As of 2019 an estimated 35 percent of U.S. households are equipped with at least one smart speaker and by 2025 forecast suggest that this penetration rate will increase to around 75 percent.

What fascinates me is not just the growth but how people are using their voices. This time last year, the news stories about voice tended to focus on increasing sales of products such as smart speakers that use the Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice assistants (and, to a lesser degree, Apple’s Siri voice assistant).

Voice Gets Personality

But a sample of headlines for the week of January 6, 2020, shows a shift in the narrative. Voice sales still matter, but what matters even more is how people are using voice products as this headline sample shows:

Notice anything about the top three results? They all focus on how we communicate with devices, specifically the need for voice assistants and people to do a better job communicating with each other. The CNN headline about programming your voice assistant to sound like actor Samuel L. Jackson is telling. In 2019, Amazon announced that soon, an Alexa skill would make it possible for people to have their smart devices talk to them using Jackson’s distinctive, earthy speaking style. Now the capability has arrived.

Why does this particular Alexa skill matter? Because it shows that voice is moving on from an impersonal utility to an assistant with personality. Being able to inject one’s voice assistant with the warm, familiar voice of Samuel L. Jackson should help people overcome a natural aversion to communicating with voice-based products: using a device that listens to us and talks to us in the most private areas of our living spaces. As journalist Judith Shulevitz wrote in a recent Atlantic article, “Is Alexa Dangerous?”:

Within our lifetimes, these devices will likely become much more adroit conversationalists. By the time they do, they will have fully insinuated themselves into our lives. With their perfect cloud-based memories, they will be omniscient; with their occupation of our most intimate spaces, they’ll be omnipresent. And with their eerie ability to elicit confessions, they could acquire a remarkable power over our emotional lives. What will that be like?

Amazon is not the only company making voice more approachable and comfortable by incorporating familiar, iconic names in their products and services. In 2015, KFC teamed up with the navigation app Waze to give motorists a fresh voice option for their audio directions: Colonel Harland Sanders. Google actually beat Amazon to the punch with celebrity tie-ins by making it possible to incorporate the voice of singer John Legend in Google Assistant. In October, Google announced that Google Assistant would incorporate the voice of actress Issa Rae.

Why Voice with Personality Matters to Advertisers

These developments matter very much to advertisers. Although people are getting more comfortable performing complex tasks such as making purchases with their voice assistants, for the most part consumers rely on voice assistants to do simple, mundane things such as checking the weather. Many businesses confine their commitment to voice to making their content more findable through voice search. And voice-enabled SEO is crucial.

But for businesses to do more sophisticated branding and advertising through voice, they need to feel confident that consumers will start responding by having rich dialogues with the brand, leading to commerce. As more businesses realize the ways voice technology can assume a personality, they will adopt more forms of sonic branding as KFC did with its Col. Sanders voice-based experience cited in this post.

Thanks to improvements in artificial intelligence, voice-enabled devices are in fact, getting smarter and more capable of managing purchases and product orders. Frankly, the market got flooded with smart speakers such as Amazon Echo and Google Home before AI was adequately advanced to make a voice-activated speaker as smart as we’d like them to be. Those days are rapidly drawing to a close, which is good for businesses and consumers.

The next big step in the evolution of a voice-first world is for voice to be more user friendly. And developments such as the Samuel L. Jackson skill are an important part of that evolution.

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Apple Offers a Glimpse of an Augmented Reality Future

Apple Offers a Glimpse of an Augmented Reality Future

by Bella Schneider Branding

Apple’s September 12 special event was mostly about hardware product launches, as it usually is. But Apple also reminded us of the company’s commitment to building an augmented reality future.

First, let’s recap a few of the big announcements:

  • Pushing into healthcare: Apple also revealed the latest version of the Apple Watch 4, which features a slew of personal wellness features such as the ability to monitor and report when the wearer experiences a fall and better heart monitoring/reporting. The Apple Watch is one essential element of Apple’s growth as a healthcare player, with the development of wellness apps being another essential element. In coming months, watch for Apple to make more announcements about healthcare as part of a broader strategy to develop its services.

The above announcements have dominated the news. In addition, two developments caught my eye:

  • Augmented reality for learning: the launch of a new iPhone app, HomeCourt, which uses augmented reality (AR) for basketball training. As reported in GeekWire, HomeCourt uses AR to track basketball shots. According to GeekWire, “AR tech built into the iPhone — including the newA12 Bionic chip— and artificial intelligence technology developed by HomeCourt maker Nex Team can detect a hoop and basketball to measure kinematics, trajectory, release times, and number of shots made.”
  • Augmented reality for play: the announcement about a new real-time augmented reality game, Galaga AR. As VentureBeat reported, “This AR adaptation of Galaga comes from Directive Games. When you look at your iPhone screen, you can see a bunch of alien-bug spaceships that you have to shoot down. You’re not only trying to survive, but you’re also trying to beat the other players. It was a pretty cool demo, with a lot of blasting onscreen and loud sounds.”

These launches are not so much about sports and gaming – they are signs of Apple’s continued growth as an AR leader. CEO Tim Cook has made no secret of his passion for AR. It’s telling that Apple demoed two very different forms of AR – one for training and one for entertainment. Both learning and entertainment comprise the sweet spot for AR.

As I noted earlier this year, various AR apps and games are currently being introduced into the App Store and Google Play, and many more are in the process of being developed using Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore. Consequently, incorporating AR technology into new tools or games for phones, tablets, and laptops will become the new norm.

You can take it to the bank: AR is going to continue growing for both business and pleasure – and Apple will have a leadership role in that growth. For more insight into how businesses can use AR to build their brands, contact True Interactive.

Two Surprising Ways Google Creates Great Content

Two Surprising Ways Google Creates Great Content

by Kurt Anagnostopoulos Branding

One of the essential attributes of successful content marketing is usefulness. Great content marketers create a win-win for themselves and their audience by sharing branded content that educates and sometimes entertains. Recently, we blogged about how one business, the NFL, provides useful content by acting as a news service about football. Now let’s take a look at two lesser-known ways one of the world’s most valuable brands, Google, makes itself useful.

For context: as we’ve stated before, a business practices content marketing by publishing useful information that supports its own brand. The definition breaks down this way:

  • Content marketing builds the credibility of a brand (hence the “marketing” part of content marketing) . . .
  • . . . by sharing useful information (content), such as how-to tips, news, commentary, and visual stories.

Through content marketing, brands act as publishers, sharing news, editorial commentary, and other forms of insight you typically associate with a third-party information source. Content marketing is not “look at me” advertising or PR. Both those forms of marketing are valuable and have their place, but they are not content marketing.

Google has a vested interest in giving people reasons to stay on Google. More eyeballs on Google means more businesses will pay Google to help them reach those eyeballs through advertising. Google does its own share of advertising to promote its brand. But the most powerful way Google maintains an audience is by offering free tools that will compel people to keep using Google to manage their lives.

I’m not talking about well-known utilities such as Google Analytics to measure how people interact with your own digital properties such as your website or Google Docs and Google Drive to collaborate on document creation, editing, and storing. I mean some of the ways Google helps you learn about the world around you, such as:

  • Think with Google. The Think with Google site is mandatory for anyone who wants free insights into marketing, technology, and consumer behavior. Think with Google offers downloadable white papers and short-form commentary on topics such as the impact of artificial intelligence on marketing and the influence of mobile devices on the customer experience journey. Think with Google elevates Google to the role of thought leader, publishing data-rich information that pushes forward our understanding of marketing. Of course, you’ll have to look elsewhere for insights critical of Google and for non-Google perspectives. Even still, Google is such a large, influential brand that even Google-centric points of view have gravitas.
  • Google Arts & Culture is a site dedicated to enriching our understanding of art. Here is an experience devoted to pure learning and personal growth. Whereas Think with Google educates you, Google Arts & Culture engages you on topics such as a visual celebration of the Lunar New Year. The site features an ongoing set of topics on rotation. One of its current featured sections, Latino Arts & Culture, provides an immersive look at the contributions of Latino artists in the United States. A featured artist section gives you a chance to take a deep dive into the works of famous names such as Vincent van Gogh. Through Google Street View, you can explore cultural landmarks around the world such as Machu Piccu.

Google offers several other resources for learning and self-development. The above two might be lesser known to you.

Google’s motives are not entirely altruistic. The more Google influences our thinking and worldview, the more Google becomes an essential part of our lives. I get it. But what Google does it does very, very well. By providing useful content that educates and enriches our lives, Google masters the art of content marketing. Contact True Interactive for help with your content marketing needs.