Google has a bit of an image problem: between controversies over privacy and AI snatching away market share, many people—young people in particular—don't really care about it anymore. To try to remedy this, the web giant has embarked on a new adventure: producing TV and movie content like a real Hollywood studio.
Google wants a cool image
The project is called 100 Zeros, as confirmed by Business Insider. It's a partnership with Range Media Partners, a rather trendy production company behind films like Longlegs and A Complete Unknown. Their mission: to identify projects, scripted or not, that Google can help finance or produce. And the goal is clear: to introduce its products into pop culture—not by plastering a logo everywhere, but gently.
This isn't a disguised advertisement, they swear. Google simply wants its tech tools (like "Immersive View" in Maps or its spatial tools that blend the virtual and the real) to be used naturally in stories. Basically, to make it believable—and if possible, a little cool.
It's not entirely new: last year, Google quietly slipped a few bucks into financing the film Cuckoo, a horror thriller starring Hunter Schafer (Euphoria). The 100 Zeros logo appears in the credits, but without a marketing campaign behind it. Test successful.
Since then, Google and Range have launched another project: "AI on Film," which funds short films about the place of artificial intelligence in our lives. Two of these films could even become feature films. The goal is also to counterbalance the anxiety-inducing narratives about AI with slightly more nuanced stories, according to Mira Lane, who leads Google's technology and society strategy.
But there's no question of dumping everything on YouTube. Surprisingly, Google prefers to sell these projects to platforms like Netflix or traditional channels. The idea is to do like Nike with its internal studio: produce content that fits its image without being an ad.
Behind all this, there is, of course, a hope: that young people will disconnect from Apple a little. Today, 88% of American teenagers have an iPhone. And hit series are often populated by characters tapping on Apple products. Google is probably dreaming that in the next trendy series, the hero uses "Circle to Search" on a Pixel, without it being an ad.
0 Comments