Jimmy Fallon, Rick Osterloh, and the spectacle of the modern product announcement
Did Google get it right this year?
I wanted to get this out sooner but I needed a few days to really let the Made By Google ‘25 event sink in.
In case you missed it, this was Google's annual product announcement event that mostly focused on new Pixel Phones and accessories.
But things were a little bit different this year.
Rather than let actual Googlers run the whole presentation, they opted to bring in a professional. Jimmy Fallon was this year's host. And the end product felt like a strange mashup of The Tonight Show, a sitcom from the 90s (live audience laughter included), and some segments you'd find on the channel of a successful YouTube influencer.
There were a bevy of celebrity appearances from the likes of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry (his interview segment to work for Google may have been the highlight of the show for me), and plenty of other people I'd never heard of but are apparently famous for one reason or another.
Star power makes sense. Android phones still have that vague stench of uncoolness when compared to iPhones. It's partially because of the lingering green bubble situation along with a general lack of examples in media of folks toting a Pixel vs an iPhone. If Google wants young people to think Pixel phones are cool, maybe this was the playbook to achieve it?
The whole experience felt really surreal from the perspective of a longtime Android enthusiast who has sat through dozens of announcement presentations like this. An article from Victoria Song at The Verge probably captured it best by saying that it felt like an episode of Wandavision. I couldn't put my finger on it until I read that article, but it is spot on!
How did it feel like Wandavision? It felt contrived. It felt like something that I was imagining. Was I living inside of Jimmy Fallon's daydream or was he living inside of mine? I didn't find it all that entertaining, but it was sorta hard to look away. Whether true or not, it did feel like there was more of a "live" feeling to it. Was Jimmy keeping to the script or did he feel like a big enough star to “go rogue” whenever he felt like it?
It's hard to say for sure, but it felt like there were times when Fallon let on that he was in on the joke. Did Jimmy actually know what a Tensor processor was before this week? Even if he did, was there a need to spout exalted superlatives like “come on!” or "now we're talkin'!" every time someone mentioned an IP rating? I can only imagine the boatload of cash handed out to Jimmy and the other celebrities for this gig.
However, I've never been in the large camp of Fallon haters. He had plenty of great moments on SNL even when he couldn't keep a straight face. And how can I bash a fellow son of the Hudson Valley? I want to give him some credit here. I think he took an impossible situation and had some fun with it. It's probably worth rewatching solely to see if I can spot any other tongue-in-cheek one-liners from Jimmy that poke fun at the absurdity of some of the product features or tech specs.
And what about Rick Osterloh and the rest of the Google gang? I think it was fine to omit Google CEO Sundar Pichai from this year's announcement. He has bigger fish to fry and the Pixel line has kinda morphed into its own thing that feels less "Googley" each year.
So without Pichai, Android Grand Poobah, (I've lost track of his actual title) Rick Osterloh has become the face of the brand and the poor stand-in for a Steve Jobs-esque figure to get people excited about Pixel products.
Let's face it. Rick isn't the most comfortable guy in front of the camera. I think he'd be the first to admit that. Putting him on the stage with someone like Jimmy Fallon was only going to make this more evident. The interactions between Fallon and the Google execs were easily the hardest parts of the event for me to watch. Or maybe it was the extended cuts with the Jonas Brothers, I don't know?
With all the talk over the last few months about the future of late night television, I was also wondering if this was an audition of sorts for Jimmy Fallon.
Stephen Colbert's run on late night is coming to an end. It feels like the writing is on the wall for Fallon and Kimmel as well. If so, what is Fallon's next act?
Are late night talk show personalities destined to be relegated to product announcements and making technology feel like it's made for the average person? While technically this was a celebration of ten years of the Pixel line of phones, this just didn't feel like a one-off experiment for Google. This kinda feels like a blueprint for what these events will be in the future.
I suppose I appreciated the live feeling and scripted spontaneity of the event. It felt more lively than some of the recent Apple announcements that were pre-recorded. Call me old fashioned but I think that tech product announcements should still be live events that super fans look forward to and casual fans are acutely aware of. I don't want it to all be press releases or perfectly orchestrated pre-canned segments where product demos can never go awry.
Perhaps the strangest thing about the Google extravaganza this year is that they opened up their pre-order pages for the devices before the event even took place! I ordered a new Pixel 10 Pro in the Moonstone color before I even saw Fallon take the stage! It felt wrong. It's been a rite of passage in the past to sit through the whole product announcement to see the features and pricing before making the purchase. It seems like the days are gone when the product pages would go live the second after the CEO walks off stage and the mad rush to secure shipping dates would ensue.
So I'll have more to say once my new Pixel arrives. Hopefully it will be a great device and we'll all be happy. But I have to say, the way the devices were announced left a very strange taste in my mouth.
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