Google To Cut Marketing Budgets By as Much as Half, Directors Warned of Hiring Freezes

Google is slashing its marketing budgets by as much as half for the second half of the year, CNBC reported Thursday. From the report: One email about the cuts went out to marketing employees this week, noting the budget cuts and a new hiring freeze for full-time and contract employees. "There are budget cuts and hiring freezes happening across marketing and across Google," said one message from a global director sent to employees Wednesday. "We, along with the rest of marketing, have been asked to cut our budget by about half for H2." A company spokesperon confirmed that some areas' budgets are being cut by as much as half, but added that others may not be since it is still in the process of "recalibrating." "As we outlined last week, we are re-evaluating the pace of our investment plans for the remainder of 2020 and will focus on a select number of important marketing efforts," a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement to CNBC Thursday. "We continue to have a robust marketing budget, particularly in digital, in many business areas."

Coronavirus

[Luckyo]

Looks like with coronavirus having nuked the economy, companies are slashing advertisement budgets, and in some cases, just eliminating them outright for the period of lockdowns. Which means that alphabet's income which is largely dependent on marketing spending is going to crash.

It's going to be interesting to see how large internet companies used to various degrees of growth, like alphabet and facebook will be able to navigate this massive shrinkage of their revenue streams.

Re:Coronavirus

[aaronb1138]

I can't wait to see all the Instagram and other social media influencers disappear... Such frivolity with no economic contribution won't survive. Companies are going to demand their marketing dollars *gasp* produce measurable results on the sales side.

Re:

[Luckyo]

How do you see that happening, with more people in lock-ups with nothing but internet for entertainment?

I can see some of those that are very advertiser-dependent cutting back, but many of the "social media influencers" are funded by their fans. Who're going to have less money each, but find relatively more import in existence of their favourite "social media influencers". I would expect this will largely balance out for most of them.

The only exception I can think of is the youtube crowd because unlike inst

Re:

[tlhIngan]

I can see some of those that are very advertiser-dependent cutting back, but many of the "social media influencers" are funded by their fans. Who're going to have less money each, but find relatively more import in existence of their favourite "social media influencers". I would expect this will largely balance out for most of them.

Social media influences are paid a LOT for their influence.

Some of the bigger ones can easily be paid $30K a month if they promote their brand or product. Some are paid $10K per

Re:

[radarskiy]

"Companies are going to demand their marketing dollars *gasp* produce measurable results on the sales side."

Social media influencers are pretty cheap. Demanding measurable results is going to hurt traditional advertising much harder.

Re:Coronavirus

[MrL0G1C]

You're not cynical enough.

If Google fires it's marketing staff now then it can re-hire cheaply soon due to all the out of work 'non-essential' marketing people that are some of the 26 million people that just hit the unemployment lines.

Kick em while they're down.

Re:

[Luckyo]

You may be right. But those kinds of operations are rather risky for large corporations, because the top talent people, i.e. the "20/80 rule" folks who are 20% of the company and do 80% of actually productive work tend to be the first ones to leave in such events. Because they have plenty of options, whereas the 80% who do the 20% of productive work have far less options.

Considering how rapidly previous "top dogs" of social media industry collapsed, I'd be very careful in those kinds of operations if I were

Google does marketing?

[melted]

News to me. Never seen it.

But they have so much money?

[Jarwulf]

Isn't google sitting on a gigantic stack of money? Did it all just vanish over this past month?

Re:

[gosso920]

Hookers don't take Bitcoin.

Re:

[Antiocheian]

I'd mod you funny but I feel guilty having fun these days.

Re:

[Quakeulf]

I would take anything from them with not just a grain of salt, but all the salt in the galaxy, and even the next. Got to keep up the appearances to boost the stock value.

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

Isn't google sitting on a gigantic stack of money? Did it all just vanish over this past month?

They aren't laying people off; they're just hiring anyone new right now.

On a side note - this would not be a great year to be graduating from college.

Their main source of income

[Quakeulf]

Doing the math, and even working as a google play store dev for many years, I find it rather weird how they can have that amount of money they seem to have. My guess is they never really had that much money, and it's all a lie that is slowly becoming apparent. Their product offerings beyond the already archaic Play (app stores are dinosaurs now), have all more or less failed, and their stock is incredibly overinflated.

Advertising is a plague on the internet

[phantomfive]

Advertising is a net negative on the internet. Not only do you have the direct effect of spam, popups, malware, and auto-playing videos, you also have the heavy negative effect on the quality of content on the internet. People doing useless or outright malicious things just to get those sweet page views.

Fuck Google

[PeeAitchPee]

I have a hard time giving a fuck about any purported financial impact this event might be having on these huge companies that don't pay ANY taxes. I'm also pissed off when I hear about them bragging that they're keeping on their employees "with pay." Let's see how generous they 'd be if they were required to pay the same % in taxes that small business must do. Seriously, fuck them.