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Inside Google Marketing: How we drive impact around sustainability and crisis response

Published
January 2019

Google’s mission is to make information accessible and useful for all. As a marketing director in Google’s Brand Studio, Sherice Torres’ job is to bring that mission to life. She leads the team in driving brand programs around sustainability and crisis response, bringing Google’s values to life through campaigns, programs, and partnerships.

“Whenever I face a challenge in a campaign, at the end of the day, I really go back to it and say, ‘what would best serve our user in this moment?’ And if we craft our solution around best serving the user, we can always find our way to a solution,” said Torres.

It’s a philosophy any marketer can relate to. And that thinking has helped Torres and her team implement programs that aid in natural disaster recovery and empower people and businesses to operate more sustainably. Watch Torres explain how her team is working with experts around the world to affect change in these areas, and learn how our research helped us identify opportunities for outsized impact.

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SHERICE TORRES: I love my job because every day,

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I'm proud of what I do.

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My team is working with experts around the world trying

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to save our planet. I'm Sherice Torres.

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I'm a Marketing Director at Google

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working on sustainability and crisis response.

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Google is uniquely positioned to give people information.

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And it's our responsibility to serve the people

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that our products touch.

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As a marketing team, we really work

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hard to empower individuals, small and medium businesses,

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as well as large organizations to operate more sustainably.

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We partnered with the California Academy of Sciences

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because they're the experts in climate science.

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We launched this incredible interactive tool called

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Your Plan, Your Planet to help people

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realize that small changes in their water, energy,

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and food waste can make a tremendous impact

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on the planet, and it gave them actionable tools.

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I think that is one of the things that

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makes a great campaign.

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On crisis response, we focus on being there for our users

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in times of man made and natural disaster.

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If you're in an area directly impacted by a forest fire,

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for example, when you go to the search bar,

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you'll see a red bar that says SOS alert.

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And it will give you specific information

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about shelters that are open, roads that might be closed,

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information on the ground from first responders.

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What we found in our research was

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that there are three phases of crisis, the before, the during,

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and the after.

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Seems pretty basic.

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But when you're only focused on the during moment,

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you miss the opportunity to have outsized impact in the areas

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of preparedness and recovery.

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So we decided to do a spotlight campaign on Puerto Rico

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almost a year after Hurricane Maria.

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We partnered with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mercy Corps,

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and the Hispanic Federation to raise over $2 million

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for Hurricane Maria recovery.

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Whenever I face a challenge in a campaign,

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at the end of the day, I really go back to it and say,

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what would best serve our user in this moment?

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And if we craft our solution around best serving the user,

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we can always find our way through to a solution.

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