Google launched its brand-new Pixel 11 series and Pixel Watch 5 yesterday at 10 am, and then, eight hours later, re-announced the entire series in an awkward, 1.5-hour-long online presentation hosted by comedic sensation Trevor Noah.
The show was broadcast on YouTube, and at one point only 57,000 people were watching, but I think it did go up to 80,000. Comments were also turned off, and I’m not surprised why.
There were only two really amazing parts of the show: the first was when Joël Yawili, a Senior Product Manager for the Gemini app, appeared on the show, and the second was when the company announced a new accessibility feature called Sign-to-Text, which I’ll get to later.
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I want to first focus on the show. There were some compelling moments when I thought it could have worked, but overall, I think what Google was trying to do wasn’t executed the way the company wanted.
Trevor Noah vs. Google
The whole point of a lifestyle show catered to consumers was to communicate how amazing Pixels are. And they are! In my hands-on with the Pixel 11 series, I wrote that the company has actually upped the game for AI on smartphones.
And asking Trevor Noah to host could have been a smart move.
But the whole show was a cringe fest. And I think it’s because you’re watching someone like Noah, who is super casual, a comedian who knows how to host a show, next to someone from Google who was clearly PR trained and was given a very specific script to follow.
Noah seemed bored, and at times seemed very uninterested in wanting to be there. He even tried to make a very obvious dick joke that clearly wasn’t well received by the Google product expert who was talking with him. The audience did laugh, though (and so did I).
What was Google trying to do with this event?
I think this show was a very obvious move by Google. It was a way to connect with consumers and help them understand their phones and what the new devices can do.
Traditionally, launch shows are hosted mostly to present to developers, tech enthusiasts, bloggers, influencers, and the media. And the message is then disseminated to the rest of the world through articles, photos, interviews, etc.
We’ve seen these shows evolve to something more spectacular, with special guests, celebrities, and even athletes to show off how they use these phones — all an effort to better connect with consumers. Because at the end of the day, that’s the biggest challenge for any tech company: How do you connect people with your product so they will buy it?
Last year was the first time that Google went completely out of the box, and to be fair, the company put on a pretty cool show. Jimmy Fallon hosted, and everything was pretty exciting… and it made sense because it was 10 years of the Pixel. So doing something spectacular was logical.
And I would have been completely fine if Google wanted to do the same thing again this year. What really threw me for a loop was the decision to host the show… eight hours after the phones were announced and made public.
At that point you’ve completely lost the audience. Consumers already know about the phones; they are reading our articles, they’re looking at what influencers are posting, and they have no real reason to go to a show, even one hosted by Trevor Noah.
While it makes sense to stream the event on YouTube, since Google controls the platform, a better move would have been to partner with a streaming service such as Netflix or Paramount Plus. An example of a showcase like this is Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look, premiering on Netflix later this month, showing that this is clearly an avenue other companies are exploring to showcase new and upcoming launches.
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It could even have been something short-lived, like WWE’s annual WrestleMania, which is now streamed on Netflix. And it could have been titled “Trevor Noah presents … the Google Pixel 11.”
The best parts of the show
For me, when Joël Yawili, a Senior Product Manager at Google, came on the show, there was a visible positive shift in the conversation. At first, Noah once again came across as uninterested and even said, “another demo,” almost as if he were really bored.
But when Yawili began to speak, he didn’t start with a script. He decided to shift the focus to a genuine connection he seemed to have with Noah: They grew up in the same town, it turns out. It also helped that Yawili seemed to genuinely care about the product he’s worked on. The entire interaction and demo truly made me smile.
I also loved how, in Yawili’s demonstration, he brought in a text conversation he was having with his mother, and the way he did it was so casual that it made me want to keep watching.
The second time the show hit for me was when Google showed off its new Sign-to-Text feature. Watching how it was demonstrated was fascinating, and the two individuals on stage really seemed interested in what they were doing and how this should have a huge impact on many people in the hard-of-hearing and -speaking community.
I’ll end this by saying I don’t think Google did a bad job; I just think it wasn’t thoroughly thought out. I think the show could have been executed a bit differently, and I think it shouldn’t have been done eight hours after the products were announced.
Google was doing the right thing by wanting to connect with consumers, and I think it can — just with a few tweaks. Are there patches for a live event?