I am Keith Hernandez

After reading TechCrunch’s post on the marketing push for Google’s Nexus One, my thoughts turned. Maybe the most innovative “disruptive” element about this launch is not the device itself nor the way it sticks it the carriers (barely). The true game-changing move coming from this launch is the way it will be marketed and advertised, almost wholly online.
Think about the Droid and the persistent tv spots you see during primetime. That is not Google pushing it down our throats, it’s Verizon luring us in with the subsidized phone to sign a 2 year contract. The entire Google culture has been adverse to the big tv ad, the wasting of money just to get in front of millions of eyeballs. The billions the company has made is because of the data-driven, hyper-targeted ads coming from adsense. They are the masters of understanding who would want a potential product with their algorithms, not throwing money at a key primetime slot.
This is a big chance for Google, because it is it’s first foray into an actual tangible product not a service, to show that a physical product can be succesfully marketed without the use of print, tv or radio. Google can prove that the online advertising world can fully support and harness the growth of a product and a brand, which if done correctly can cause a paradigm shift in overall advertising spending.
Companies like Aol, Yahoo and Microsoft should be rooting for the Nexus One to succeed if it in fact is only an online push. It would be the greatest case study imaginable if this product sells well for increase in online advertising. The early word is that Google’s marketing pie will be almost entirely online and one can only hope they hold to that. The real game changer coming from this announcement could be the advertising business and finally a strong push to fully realized online campaigns.