During the recent Super Bowl, AWS showcased its big-data and analytics prowess through its ongoing high-visibility campaign of TV ads built around NFL plays and the endless array of statistics surrounding them.
So when Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian spoke at the recent Goldman Sachs investment conference in San Francisco, he was asked during the open Q&A session for this thoughts on that marketing approach.
Great question, I thought—after all, who knows more these days about advertising than Google?
Plus, YouTube’s rapidly expanding business gives Google extensive insights into audience reaction to video programming as well.
So should we expect to see Google Cloud battle it out on the Super Bowl airwaves next February? (And is “airwaves” still a thing in the age of digital broadcasting??)
Here’s Kurian’s reply:
We’ve got a very focused demand-generation program—digital demand generation—where we’re expanding the ‘top of the funnel’ online, and then for the ‘bottom of the funnel’ conversion we’ve hugely optimized our spend as well as our efficiency in this area, and we’re driving that digital demand to our own organization—our sales teams—as well as to partners.
And in a quick follow-on that got a laugh from longtime Goldman Sachs tech analyst Heather Bellini, Kurian added, “I think you would expect that Google, given our expertise in advertising, that we would know how to do digital reach pretty well.”
This stands as another example of how Kurian is establishing a truly unique and highly differentiated strategy for Google Cloud that makes no attempt whatsoever—even via a widespread phenomenon like the Super Bowl—to imitate what others have done or are doing.
Tomorrow, we’ll be sharing another example of how Kurian is demonstrating that highly differentiated strategy and positioning. And tomorrow’s example will, I believe, become a highly disruptive innovation that will have huge implications for the entire enterprise-software industry.
Another reason to believe that the Cloud Wars are only just starting to heat up, and that 2020 will be an extraordinary year in the cloud.
Cloud Wars
Top 10 Rankings — Feb. 17, 2020
| 1. Microsoft — Nadella & Co. show who’s #1: cloud revenue thumps AWS’s by 26% |
| 2. Amazon —My ‘open letter’ to Jassy: don’t behave like predator but talk like pacifist |
| 3. Salesforce — 20-year itch: can Benioff outflank SAP in redefining modern CRM? |
| 4. SAP — co-CEO Klein shoots down Ellison claim re Oracle nabbing big SAP customer |
| 5. Oracle — Larry Ellison brawling with SAP, Amazon and Salesforce |
| 6. Google — Thomas Kurian tells MSFT and AMZN, ‘We are the fastest-growing cloud vendor’ |
| 7. IBM — 5 steps new CEO Arvind Krishna can take to reinvigorate growth potential |
| 8. Workday — Can Bhusri continue to beat SAP & Oracle for huge Fortune 100 deals? |
| 9. ServiceNow — Can McDermott be king-maker in Salesforce-SAP battle for CRM? |
| 10. TBD — New addition coming soon! |
Disclosure: at the time of this writing, Google Cloud was among the numerous clients of Cloud Wars Media LLC and Evans Strategic Communications LLC.
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