Customers don’t buy specs. They buy solutions.
EXPERT OPINION BY CARMINE GALLO, HARVARD INSTRUCTOR, KEYNOTE SPEAKER, AUTHOR, ‘THE BEZOS BLUEPRINT’ @CARMINEGALLO
Comedian Trevor Noah and Alex Cooper, creator and host of the Call Her Daddy podcast, brought celebrity appeal to Google’s Pixel 11 launch, but they also played another important role: representing the average customer.
The event, livestreamed from a studio in Manhattan, was meant to showcase the new lineup of Pixel 11 smartphones and, in particular, their AI capabilities. During the demos, Noah asked whether the new phone would address his pet peeve: the inability of most phones to recognize accents. Cooper asked if all her photos and chats would disappear if she switched to Pixel from another platform.
Ask the question customers care about
I’ve spoken at Google headquarters three times and have learned first-hand that the company puts a lot of thought into translating complex innovations into simple ideas everyone can understand.
As products and technologies become more complicated, founders in nearly every industry face a communication challenge. They need to help customers understand what a product, service, or innovation can actually do for them.
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Google deliberately paired celebrities with executives and engineers to bridge the gap.
Start with the customer problem
When Joel Yawili, a member of the Gemini team, took the stage to show off some of the new features of the Pixel 11, Noah raised a real-world frustration: voice-to-text doesn’t feel natural.
“You have to speak like a robot and enunciate carefully, or the phone cannot understand you,” he said.
