Google Inc.

in times of
Pandemic

Noli V. Abella
Jenylyn M. Dela Rosario
Loudette C. Dela Cruz-Santos
 Case Title

Google Inc.,
in times of Pandemic
 Viewpoint
• Covid-19, a crisis like none we have
faced before

• Unforeseen outcomes
• Communities coming together and
supporting each other
• People spending much more time on
screens

• Companies can come out of it

stronger
 Time Context

• December 31st, 2019** – Present

** The first report of a small cluster of pneumonia cases with

unknown etiology in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China (WHO,
2020a: Zhu et al., 2020)
 Setting

• Founded in 1998 by Sergey Brin and

Larry Page

• Its headquarters are in Mountain

View, California.
 Historical Background

• Began in 1995 at Stanford University

• Built a search engine that used links

to determine the importance of
individual pages on the World Wide
Web

• Then called “Backrub”.

 Historical Background

• Renamed Google which is a play on

the mathematical expression for the
number 1 followed by 100 zeros and
aptly reflected Larry and Sergey's
mission “to organize the world’s
information and make it universally
accessible and useful.”
 Historical Background

• In August 1998, Sun co-founder Andy

Bechtolsheim wrote Larry and Sergey
a check for $100,000, and Google
Inc. was officially born.

• Its first office: a garage in suburban

Menlo Park, California, owned by
Susan Wojcicki (employee #16 and
now CEO of YouTube)
 Historical Background
• The Googleplex, current
headquarters in Mountain View,
California
 Historical Background
• Today, Google makes hundreds of
products used by billions of people
across the globe, from YouTube and
Android to Gmail and, of course,
Google Search
 Statement of Problem
• Is this campaign / advertisement right, given the current
context in a local market?

• Though they greenlit this campaign last month/last

week/yesterday, is it still right for the context and moment?

• Are all the creative elements – tone, copy, visuals,

keywords, placements – appropriate and relevant to this
new reality?

• What are the most relevant brands, products, or campaigns

their media can support right now, and do they need to shift
budgets?

• What ways can their brand – and even their owned media
channels – be helpful to people and businesses in this
moment of need?
 Alternative Course of
Action
• Direction from the center, but
decisions on the ground

• Reassessing every possible

touchpoint

• Shifting paid media priorities to

brands that help more people get
vital information or bridge the gap
between what was once “normal”
and their current reality
 Recommendation
• Incorporate learnings from the crisis
into the long-term business strategy

• Invest in infrastructure to measure

what matters.

• Redefine their brand principles and

reassess what their brand needs
today.
 Plan of Action

• Protect and inform the team

• Create an external communication

plan that fits the brand

• Being creative and finding new ways

to deliver your service