Can Google and CPG Advertisers Get Past Hello?

As consumer packaged good companies work to incorporate search more into their advertising and marketing mix, they are running into some stumbling blocks. In this interview from Brandweek, Kevin Kells, who is the national industry director for CPG at Google, talks about some of the issues facing CPG companies.

In order for CPG advertisers to be effective online, Kells thinks that:

“Instead of focusing on a small amount of creative, they should be making more. They should be making 1,000 digital assets a years as opposed to three television assets”

Unfortunately, CPG companies aren’t currently structured that way in their relationships with their agency partners. They generally work with their agencies to develop a creative strategy that is motivating and steeped in the insights around the brands and their consumers. Then they blow this core message out across all the traditional media touchpoints: TV, print, in-store, etc.

Kells thinks CPG “needs to be online with different stories” through multiples of creative, while traditional CPG advertising is more about a single story told through several different vehicles.

While I think a mindset change could come, the more difficult part will be the costs behind developing all those different creative executions. Online is currently very efficient from a buy standpoint compared to traditional media. However, all that efficiency could go out the door if the non-working production costs behind developing 1,000 creative executions skyrocket.

CPG and Google are still at the hello stage, but at least they still are in the same room.