2022 marks 10 years of Think with Google. To celebrate this milestone, join us as we reflect on what defines Google marketing; look back on a decade of illuminating insights, timeless articles, and memorable perspectives; and look ahead at what’s to come.
Since Think with Google’s founding in 2012, hundreds of advertising leaders have generously shared their time and insights with our audience.
To commemorate our 10th year of publication, we dug into our archive of articles, interviews, and video conversations to spotlight perspectives from some of the brightest and most celebrated people in advertising and broader culture.
When sales and marketing teams chase after separate objectives, they miss out on key opportunities to acquire, develop, and retain valuable customers. In a 2022 article, Vishal Subharwal shared how he successfully merged sales and marketing at HDFC Life to drive long-term growth.
“We unified the two teams, pulling down silos between functions to better align on goals and enable cross-functional collaboration,” Subharwal explained. “As we strengthened the connection between sales and marketing, we saw the impact on the bottom line.”
How a CMO successfully unified sales and marketing to power long-term growth. Read the full piece.
In 2021, we invited Axton Salim to share more about his views on leadership and creativity in business. In the interview, the director of Indofood — one of Indonesia’s largest and longest established food companies — talks candidly about how he keeps up with trends that come and go quickly, and the importance of having the humility to learn from different people.
“Be ready to learn from the older generation with more experiences,” advised Salim, “and also be ready to learn from the younger generation with the speed and ways of looking innovatively for solutions.”
Getting personal: Axton Salim, Director of Indofood on learning from his grandfather, YouTube, and young people. Watch the video.
As media consumption habits evolve, people have the luxury of interacting with brands in the way they choose to. This calls for businesses to change the way they think, operate, and serve their customers. For Karen Ngui, the managing director of DBS Bank, this means that even one of the oldest industries in the world — marketing, can be innovative if it’s reimagined to be immersive, purpose-driven, and ambitious.
“Facts by themselves can be very dry,” Ngui wrote in a 2019 article, “so our ability to tell stories is crucial to draw in the audience and allow them to see for themselves the value DBS can bring through our services and dedication.”
Perspectives: Sparks fly as DBS banks on open culture to fuel ideas. Read the full piece.
Is it foolish to launch a marketing initiative at the height of global uncertainty? Not according to Bruce Lam, CSL’s managing director at the time. In a 2020 dialogue with us, Lam shared how his team revamped its digital marketing strategy and launched 5G internet in Hong Kong during the pandemic.
“Bad times also provide ample business opportunities if you know where to look,” Lam said, offering advice to businesses facing tough times. “It’s important to push ahead because these opportunities will not wait for you.”
Launching a successful campaign in the midst of a pandemic. Read the full piece.
Everyone loves a good story and it’s a marketer’s job to figure out what that is. For Netflix’s former Director of Marketing for APAC James Rothwell, data was at the heart of everything his creative team did, and it helped them make wise decisions. For example, they made their ads hyper-local and hyper-relevant to appeal to the widest audience possible.
“Above all, we focus on storytelling,” wrote Rothwell in 2018. “That means we have to create assets and video ads that people want to see.”
Perspectives: Find your audience on digital and storytell with data. Read the full piece.
Ivana Bartoletti believes that marketing teams need storytellers who can humanize the sometimes-numbing topic of privacy. In a 2022 article that aggregated the perspectives of chief privacy officers from around the world, Bartoletti described how she worked to create a common language that engineers, lawyers, and others across the organization could use to rally around consumer data protection.
“To get my team aligned, I’ll sometimes talk to them about recent privacy stories in the news. We talk through the issues, dilemmas, and potential solutions, and this case study brainstorming gets everyone on the same page,” she said.
You need a privacy-centric organization. Here’s how to build it. Read the full piece.
Way back in 2012, its first year of publication, Think with Google posted a short profile of Mads Nipper, the CMO of Lego at the time. (Today he’s the CEO of offshore wind developer Ørsted.) Nipper described Lego’s 10-year effort to transform the company by extending its brand across a range of physical and digital experiences — including stores, games, and apps.
“We found out it was the [creative] experience in its totality that was where we should differentiate ourselves,” explained Nipper, “not on this component or that technology or this brick.”
Executive Insight: Mads Nipper. Read the full piece.
To overcome bias, you first need good research that demonstrates a problem exists. Academy Award winner Geena Davis understood this when, back in 2004, she began advocating for greater representation of women in the media. In a piece published in 2019, she summarized a study — undertaken in partnership with Google — assessing female representation in advertising content.
“From over a decade of advocacy, I’ve learned that providing data-driven research is the most effective intervention tool for achieving systemic change,” Davis wrote. “We are motivating advertisers to evaluate the inclusiveness of their work, identify unconscious bias, and engage in conversations around representation with their teams.”
What 2.7M YouTube ads reveal about gender bias in marketing. Read the full piece.
Before his retirement in 2019, Keith Weed led marketing strategy at one of the world’s largest and most forward-thinking advertisers. In this 2017 piece, he articulated the opportunity for brands to improve shopper experience and reduce the burden of product choice through ad personalization.
“For brands to be allowed a part in the hyper-empowered consumer’s life, they have to be able to both anticipate and assist with their needs,” he wrote. “This means being relevant, tailored, and personal — a huge shift from when brands (especially CPG businesses like Unilever) tended to be built for the masses.”
The future of consumer marketing? The CMO of Unilever says it’s ‘consumer segments of one.’ Read the full piece.
In a video interview recorded in 2019, then-Calvin Klein CMO Gulin-Merle shared her vision for “the end of digital marketing.” She noted the growing prevalence of “research online, purchase offline” behaviors, and the seamless movement of people’s attention across devices and physical experiences.
“You have your mobile with you throughout the journey. The consumption of videos, of search behavior, all of this is present with you throughout the journey,” she said, before adding that treating digital as a stand-alone channel “creates silos within companies instead of infusing tech, digital, and data at the core of everything you do.”
Welcome to the end of digital marketing. Watch the video.
Look back on a decade of illuminating insights and get inspired for what's ahead:
