Correction: A previous version of this story stated Google is launching an advertising campaign for Nest. It is Alphabet, not Google, that is Nest's parent company.
Dive Brief:
- Alphabet Inc's Nest. released a TV campaign as well as a new slogan, “We Heart Home," according to AdAge.
- The new slogan is meant to promote the flagship Nest Thermostat, smoke and carbon monoxide detector and the Nest Cam, designed for both indoor and outdoor use.
- Google purchased Nest Labs for $3.2 billion in January 2014 to give the tech giant an immediate footprint in the smart/connected home space.
Dive Insight:
Heading into the holiday season, the marketing move from Nest seems to indicate the smart and connected home space, which ties into both the Internet of Things as well as artificial intelligence, is becoming more competitive. Google and Amazon are also both running ads for their home digital assistants.
The Nest product line is more about connecting those devices to smartphones, giving users another layer of control as well as access to what’s happening in a home while the person living there is away.
At the same time the overall smart home concept includes devices like Amazon’s Echo which acts as an interactive personal assistant controlling different smart home devices. Google’s Home is a more direct competitor for the Echo device but the new campaign from Nest points to a broader push from Alphabet to be a key player in the home.
"We think of Google Home as an interface, but we want the Nest product to live in the background," Matteo Vianello, creative director at Nest, told Ad Age. "Google Home is more like a phone, but it's not part of the Nest ecosystem. It is a Google product whose focused on entertainment and answering questions. That is not our focus at Nest. But these are complementary products."