For a company that makes 99% of their money from advertisers, Google is stunningly inept when it comes to marketing and advertising.
They make a great offer: Google gadget that appeals to cord-cutters + 3 months free Netflix for just over the cost of the Netflix.
Consumers go gaga over the deal.
Google has just created an inroad to the living room. They're in! They've done it!
It really doesn't matter what else the gadget can or cannot do when it ships. YouTube + Netflix is enough. The gadget is cheap. And it'll get better with time.
Aaaand then Google throws their advantage away because the promo deal is costing them too much money.
Fickle consumers go off looking for the next great bargain.
Number of Google gadgets potentially installed in living rooms falls by orders of magnitude.
Nicely done, Google. Your engineers might be brilliant. Your executives should be forced to call every single advertiser they work with and explain why they cancelled the promo deal.
How many millions did you save? Were they really worth it? Really?
You can't monetize a gadget that you don't sell.
Idiots.
