Yesterday, Google joined the ranks of the prestigious S&P 500, a list of 500 US corporations ordered by market capitalization. It’s fascinating to see the rise of this search giant especially as someone who watched the company from its humble beginnings.
Google might have won the search war thanks to its superior technology (Pagerank) but in my books the real star behind the tech giant is Cindy McCaffrey, vice president of corporate marketing, who left the company right after the IPO.
It is said that Cindy advocated against a big advertising campaign to build the Google brand but instead opted for a PR strategy. Needless to say, she was right and until today, I still have to see any major Google ad.
As an experienced PR practitioner, she knew that PR (publicity, word-of-mouth and other third-party endorsements) is the ultimate way to create awareness for a new brand.
How many companies victim of the dot-com bubble would be alive today had they a Cindy McCaffrey in their marketing team? I don’t know for sure but I am certain about one thing: Cindy McCaffrey made Google and if anyone knows how to get in touch with her, please tell her that I am a fan.
