Transcript

Bennie F. Johnson

Hello, and thank you for joining us for this episode of AMA’s Marketing / And. I’m your host, AMA CEO, Bennie F. Johnson. In our episodes, we explore life through a marketing lens, delving into conversations of individuals that flourish at the intersection of marketing and the unexpected. Through our episodes, we’ll introduce you to visionaries whose stories you might not yet have heard of, but are exactly the ones you need to hear.

We’ll have thought-provoking conversations. We’ll unravel the challenges, triumphs, and pivotal moments that have been shaped by marketing. Partnerships are everywhere. Partnerships are important to our success. Partnerships are important to your brand. So our third guest for this special episode is none other than Kevin Babcock, head of creative partnerships at Google.

In his work, Kevin builds dynamic creative partnerships between Google and global brands and agencies, including entertainment companies across the globe. He believes that creativity can be an economic multiplier that can drive new approaches and strategy. Kevin, welcome to the podcast. 

Kevin Babcock

Thanks for having me. Thank you for having me. 

Bennie

So we did a shorter bio this time because I wanted you to tell a bit about your story and your journey. What leads you to this role as head of creative partnerships with Google?

Kevin 

Ah, that’s a good question. Honestly, I thank my stars every day. I might have the coolest job on the planet. No offense. No offense. offense. 

Bennie

Well, you know, this is a place I need you to prove that. So tell me more. 

Kevin 

So I’m a 20, roughly 23 year marketing and advertising vet. I graduated from Michigan State with a degree in advertising. Right out of school, went to McCann in Detroit. Got my teeth on General Motors like a good Michigan kid should do. From there, moved to BBDO and got your transferred into Chicago. that was about 20 years ago, actually, this June. BBDO over to Leo Burnett and one of their agencies, Arc Worldwide. And then some time at Y&R, now VML. Some time at a small independent agency and then ultimately Digitas. So that was roughly 14 years, touched a lot of amazing brands. And like many Chicago advertising professionals, know, wonderful time spent on brands like McDonald’s and Sears, but you know, Miller Lite, know, BP, some old banks that were acquired by Bank of America. But it was just an awesome journey, worked with some amazing people and had some great bosses, but I think some of my best bosses were the creative directors I had to help sell their work, So yeah, 2016, my wife who was working at Google at the time saw this job opening for sort of a creative agency liaison at Google. She slipped it over to me and I said… She didn’t mind you working for the same company? Well, this was actually the second time we would have worked. We met at McCann. Okay. Two thousand, two thousand three.

So I was thrilled with my position at Digitas, great agency, but I said, I this is Google, I’ll give it a shot, and somehow got the job. So I spent a few years trying to build relationships with creative agencies to help them understand how to capitalize on the creative canvas that is YouTube.

Fast forward a few years, our team services ultimately got rolled up into sort of brand direct deals. And so now today, I work with an amazing group of folks whose job it is to help brands maximize their media investment through creative. Creative is the single largest driver of campaign ROI. 50% conservatively, up to 80 % if you’re talking about digital media, which makes our jobs incredibly fun, but also critical, both for Google and the brands we support.

Bennie 

So when you think about partnerships, how has your approach to partnerships changed now that you’ve been at Google? You take one of the world’s most dynamic and sort after plans at Google. How do you approach partnerships now? 

Kevin 

Well, I actually take the word partnership very seriously. think partnership implies mutual benefit, accountability. We say we’re going to do something, let’s hold hands and get it done. And actually, I think that’s lessons I brought forward from agency land, right? Brands would contract the agencies that work for to bring campaigns to life and market. And so I try to bring that spirit forward here, you know, setting shared goals, checking in on those milestones, holding each other accountable for doing the things that we know are going to move the customer’s business. And it’s really been very rewarding. And, know, I think some of the most dynamic CMOs I’ve ever worked with have started with that. What do we need to achieve together? What can that CMO do to help to change the behavior of their organization to meet those goals? How can we at Google rally our resources behind what the clients need to do to move their business? It’s been fascinating on this side of the table. 

Bennie 

So when you think about Google’s presence as a platform and a tool, you’ve really been at the heart of expanding and creating a space for this creative economy. What are the things that you see happening now in kind of this next generation of creator economy? Yeah, the creator economy is fascinating. 

Kevin

We actually studied this with Bain 2021-2022. We were trying to come out of COVID. What is the creator creative economy going to look like? And we kind of came out with two major conclusions. Number one, we at the time we called it tech enabled creative, which this was about six months before AI made a big splash in the market. Uh, was going to grow roughly 30, 40% year on year. But on the other side of the equation was the creator economy, which was going to outpace tech enabled creative and sort of traditional agency service, which is are still acquired and incredibly important. Uh, we estimate that roughly 50% year of year. And I think, uh, fair to say that was fairly accurate if not a little conservative. Um, but what’s been amazing to see is these creators evolve into power players in the industry, right? Right. They’re CEOs, they’re founders, they’re, they’re, uh, creative directors, 

Bennie 

They’re storytellers, their agency leads. Now, know, you think about it, the space. isn’t just, I have a phone, I have an image, I have 30 seconds video. You’re talking about major players. 

Kevin 

They’re building their businesses on YouTube to collaborate with other businesses, right? Brands to do amazing things. I mean, just to put it in perspective, Google has paid out $70 billion. Over the last three years to three million creators who are uploading 500 hours of content every minute. I mean, that’s how robust that’s just YouTube. So to put it into context, it’s really been fascinating. And if you get a chance to get to know some of these creators, which I’ve been fortunate to, I was just on a panel with one last week, her name’s Sarah Funk. She’s in the travel creator space. She does these amazing sort of like, if you’re going to visit a city, check out her channel. And we were talking about the criticality of data to our jobs. And I was fascinated just to hear her talk about her reliance on things like Google trends and the analytics on her YouTube channel. To make decisions about the next piece of content she’s going to produce. Right, because every time she calls her DP or every time she calls her editor, the dollars start to rack up. So she’s making data back decisions to produce content. But that’s how evolved the creator economy has… 

Bennie

Which is amazing because it was often kind of dismissed as you’re just making a video, you’re just having fun, you all have a real job, right? But then seeing, as you said, the work, the tools that provide the real data that’s coming in. We had a conversation with the head of one of the public radio spaces some time ago. We’re talking about the tension between traditional media and his son is in the creator space and what he’s been able to build in a short time, space and air and their conversations about what media has meant and what it means today. 

Kevin

It’s fascinating. I mean, I think we, each of us can think about a creator or a channel that we consume on YouTube or other social platforms, but I I’m sort of a, to put it kindly, I’m an amateur musician getting into guitar over the last three years and hours spent watching YouTube content whether it’s instructional videos right my guy Marty music teach him how to play Blackbird like the Beatles hit right or watch in a short from my guy Rhett Schull on how to mod my guitar quickly to make it play easier right it’s constant it’s all the time. 

Bennie 

I’m actually a brand question. Do you look cool playing?

You know, when you think about creators in a space, one of the stats that’s always blown me away is it’s not just younger generations who are finding a space and a voice with platforms like Google and YouTube to create space in there. How do you think about that with your brand partnerships? This isn’t just Gen Z or Gen Alpha. 

Kevin 

Yeah, Bennie, it’s everyone. I mean, it cuts across age groups, whether you’re talking about the content creation side. There’s a guy I watch out of the UK, guitaristas, if you’re ever really curious about getting ready on guitar gear, he’s got to be in his 50s or 60s producing killer content for someone like me who’s curious on this side of the pond.

And in the meantime, my folks are down in Florida watching YouTube every day to either educate themselves on how to do something or just for pure entertainment value. So it absolutely cuts across generations. 

Bennie

So when you think about partnerships, what do you think partners, what do you wish partners knew when they come to the table with Google? When brands come in from a variety of sizes and backgrounds, what’s the one thing you’d hope they’d think about or consider before entering into a partnership conversation?

Kevin 

Well, I mean it may sound cliche, but we don’t consider ourselves successful unless they’re successful. I mean that really gets back to the implied agreements from a partnership level. We really care deeply about our customers’ success. We do our best to put them at the center of every decision that we make. I don’t want to speak for our product folks, you know thinking about there’s that flywheel of the creators on the channel, the users who consume all that content, and the brands who need to advertise on the platform to reach their customers. And that’s an important leg of the stool, right? So the customer centricity is real. We feel it every day. We train ourselves up on that to make sure we can hold ourselves accountable to being customer centric.

Bennie

So when we think about this space, we know that there’s a lot of creative tension and activity happening, dare I say competition in this space. What can brands do to distinguish themselves? Because everybody’s going to have access to the tools, which is awesome. They’ll all have access to Google as a platform. What advice do you have for marketing professionals and brands to level up?

Kevin 

Well, there’s, I guess, quite a few things. Number one, we’ve already sort of covered it. Take the creator economy seriously. Find out, explore with your partners, whether that’s agencies, influencer marketing agencies, your partners at platforms like Google. How can I authentically enter the creator space to drive connections with the audience that I care so much about? That’s number one.

Number two is how are we going to leverage AI to increase our productivity and maximize again, the impact of every dollar spent. it’s not hyperbole to say AI is affecting everything. I’m sure you guys are seeing that every day. If you set aside the sort of consumer, this consumer side of the technology, right? Your large language models, things like Gemini. And you think about media and creative, right? So many of the media products that we are bringing to the table today for customers are shifting into AI powered space. Meaning it’s taking a lot of the heavy lifting off of our teams and the media teams are ultimately placed in that media because you essentially plug in your objective, give it the assets that it needs and let it run. And it will serve the right asset to the right user or the right audience at the right time.

On the creative side, that means a couple of things for us. Number one, we can’t just put one old asset in an AI-powered media campaign, because again, the AI will do that work for us.

If a 15 second ad is the right ad in the right time for this particular audience, the AI will serve that, will know that and it will serve that. If it’s a six, if it’s a long form, like a two or three minute film, a vertical or a landscape asset, that’s what the power of the AI, AI powered media is bringing to the table. But creatively there are implications to that. Now we’re talking about developing more versions for each and every campaign, which can feel like a burden. But if you’ve got AI in your corner, it doesn’t have to be.

Bennie

And think about that in a moment, Just the notion of a version. Earlier in our careers, how much investment, how much time, how much consideration went into creating an additional version. Now you can do versions, plural. and test and develop and deploy. 

Kevin 

Bennie, I started my career trafficking spots for Buick, Southeast and Northeast regions of the United States, filling out ISCI code spreadsheets. Right. Yeah, there’s that. I know that look. You bring back memories. Routing ROP ads through the agency and marking up those versions of wax pencils. And you’re right. I mean, the burden on versions used to be significant. Now you think about technologies that are built on AI and cloud stacks make it almost push button, right? You think about including audience segments into some of these tools and we actually actually encourage brands to think about third-party ecosystem that are either building on our stack or others to leverage versioning technology so we can start to really do personalization at scale in a meaningful way. But also some of the products that we have for example you can opt in to taking your 16 by 9 ad and just making it 9 by 16. It’ll give you a solid version. And that’s all AI generated. That’s no lift. Now there may be some brand governance and things that we want to make sure we’ve seen the things before they lie and that’s all farewell and good. 

Bennie

But you can build in that learning. 

Kevin

Absolutely. 

Bennie

You think about this for the game changers. the GM ads you’re going to have the background resource. I’ve seen some work lately where AI tools of that nature are really helping the small and very mid-market players come in who may not have, who have the money for media placement, but it’s the creation of creative that always jams them. And now they’re building in regional coffee shop. can do ads on YouTube, their local cable streamer, and online with the kind of adjustment of AI brief.

Kevin

And by the way, hey Gemini, I need some headlines for these products and these markets to run in this type of an ad. We’ve really condensed the time it takes from need to execution, which is pretty remarkable. 

Bennie 

So you brought it up first. I’m going to ask the question. What surprised you the most seeing Gemini the last six months?

Kevin 

I mean, its rapid pace of innovation is remarkable. Google’s been an AI centric company since I believe it was 2016 Sundar came out and said, we’re going to be an AI first company. You feel it every day at Google. Right. And the Gemini’s are the, are the easy consumer facing front for that technology, but it’s really powering everything. Right. I talked about the ad products earlier, the versioning technology. If you haven’t played around with something like notebook LM yet to aggregate all of your intellectual property and help you think about streamlining, summarizing, podcasting, it’ll actually generate a podcast for you based on the information you give it. It’s, it’s really, remarkable again that’s all the consumer the consumer front so it’s just I’m just blown away every day part of reason why I feel like I have one of the greatest jobs on the planet is just being able to be the benefactor for all the technologies that a company like Google is creating.

Bennie

I asked you for you know proof points you’re doing a good job of giving proof points of why this is a pretty good job so you know what’s on the horizon that makes you we’ve talked a lot about excitement looking around the corner future you know you’re at a space in which the products and these drop. What are you really fighting with the future breaking through? What do you get excited about? 

Kevin

There’s a lot I’m excited about. But actually there’s some tension that kind of comes with it. And I think as marketers, we’re inclined to understand consumer behavior before we make any big moves.

What I understand, our team has uncovered this, that consumers are actually interacting with about 130 mobile touch points every day. That’s just mobile. But when you zoom out, there’s roughly four big behaviors we consider on the Google side. There’s streaming, there’s scrolling, searching, and shopping. 

Bennie 

And none of those existed when we were growing up. That’s right. If you talk about how much our world has changed. So talk about those four and what that means for the future. 

Kevin 

Yeah. actually happen simultaneously. Right? So now taking a photo can be part of a shopping experience. Exactly. Right. I am scrolling on my TV screen in my living room via YouTube because shorts plays just as well on the living room as it does on your mobile phone. Right. So these things are there. They’re there. They’re happening simultaneously, but they’re also kind of splintering. So how do we as brands or those who advise brands take really full advantage of this, and this is kind of back to the AI conversation. First of all, lean on the platform partners that you know are driving the AI conversation and have the AI to help you be successful in market. And two, really think about… how your plans intersect with those four big behaviors. So it’s really exciting. 

Bennie

Because you talked about, it’s fascinating, we were talking about our kids and the age of our kids and their growing up in which those four behaviors are ebbing and flowing and part of their learning experience. How do you help brands who are not living every day, like our teens and tweens, keep up with what’s next, what’s now, what’s new in terms of the offering? 

Kevin

Great question.

One, we have an incredible trends and culture team at Google that will issue reports definitely annually, but I think they do a little bit of drip feeding over the course of the year. That really helps us equip brands to take advantage of the trends that are happening on platforms like YouTube. Number two, we’re taking our own advice. We have an incredible team who is actually using AI on our, on our backend to build trend spotting tools to basically aggregate all of the amazing signals that we can get. Sorry, aggregate all the privacy safe signals we can get to make sure that we are serving up those trends. And then what we’ll do on our side, is match that with creative thought starters, right? So this is the power of our team coming together and collaborating with brands and their agencies. Well, you’ve got a big new vehicle launch coming up. The holiday season’s important to you retailer. Let us bring these trends forward, some ideas, some thought starters on how you might want to capitalize. Now you can take those ideas over to your agency and go ahead and execute. You can work through our team and our trusted third parties to bring those to market.

But those that’s really because you YouTube incredibly sits at this the center of culture And the trends on on YouTube are like lasting trends. They stick around. We’re still talking about ASMR YouTube because it still matters. It’s still it’s still something that people want to engage with. One of our favorite trends. It’s built on ASMR. It’s this ambient rooms. Okay, so when COVID first hit We couldn’t leave our homes. So people wanted to transport themselves somewhere. And so these creators started to put, you know, coffee shop in Paris. Five hour pieces of creat which is some lovely jazz coffee cup with some steam and people would pop it and just chill with it for actually helped brands take We’ve launched an ambient murders in the building. that It’s a great ambient rooms for the prim one in Charles’s apartment. Watch time was like 15, 16, 17 minutes. So as a brand, you’re getting a consumer to stick around with you for that long, it’s priceless. It’s incredible. 

Bennie 

Well, you know, I think you’ve proven a point. You have a pretty cool job. But I’m going to give you one last assignment for this cool job. So this is going to be, you know, I’m a marketer at heart, so this is going to be a shameless plug that you’re going to get. So you get a shameless plug for you and Google partnerships. You know, we try to encourage our marketing leaders to experiment. To try new things in space. So if you could recommend one new product feature for a marketing audience to try, what would that be? So I’m giving you a shameless plug so you only get one.

Kevin

You know, normally I would, about a year ago I would said shorts, but I think we’re over that hurdle, right? Shorts, two billion views, two billion active users, 70 billion views a day, I mean, it’s here and it’s sticking around. So I’m gonna up level it. So I’m getting one and a half on you. The smartest brands we work with now are rethinking their creative process. And they’re thinking about YouTube at the center of that process. Because if you build for YouTube, you’re going to set yourself up, one, to drive maximum impact on the most consequential video platform on the planet. And number two, those assets will work well in other places. So if you build effective YouTube ads, you could run that linear.

You can run that on their streaming platforms. If you leverage YouTube creators and influencers, guess what you could do with those assets. So by rethinking, 10, 15, 20 years ago, it was TVC first. Now we’re talking about solid brief, great conceptual idea from the creative team. Now we start thinking about how does this idea have legs? Start with YouTube. Humble suggestion from our team, but we’ve seen it work. Not a product, but a process.

Bennie

But I think what it is is experimentation and innovation. Which is what we asked for. My friend, thank you for being here with us today. Thank you for telling us about your journey and I’ve said I’m going to give you credit, it’s a pretty cool job. But also providing the insights on how best to build creative partnerships in the future for our brands and for our career for these moments. Thank you for being a part of here and thank you all for joining us for this episode of AMA Marketing And. 

Kevin

Thanks for having me.