Editor's note: Meet the Mapmakers is a new series highlighting the people who shape Google Maps Platform. Tune in as our Mapmakers offer their unique perspectives on the platform’s present and future, and share stories about their personal journeys.
I’ve always loved building something from scratch. I’m a seven time Ironman triathlete, and I get energized by setting audacious goals and working hard to achieve them. In 2017, I heard about a new marketing organization forming within the Google Maps Platform team. For the past several years, I had been working on the Google Ads team. That team was robust and well-established, but with the proliferation of mobile and connected devices, I felt a deep conviction that location was going to be intrinsic to everything we did. So I decided to take the leap into an exciting new opportunity.
Early days on the team
When I started on the Google Maps Platform marketing team, it was just my manager and me. We were scrappy, fast moving, and sat right next to the product team. We would keep a running Google doc of ideas for industries our products could support and commission research to understand the opportunities and challenges. It felt like a startup atmosphere within Google.
Immersive experiences
For me as a marketer and storyteller, one of Google Maps Platform’s most exciting use cases is immersive branded experiences. An immersive experience uses the power of visual mapping technologies like 3D, panoramic imagery and highly customized basemaps to create a new platform for brands to interact with consumers. For example, a few years ago, I had the opportunity to work with Elton John’s team on a marketing campaign for his farewell tour. His team wanted to build an interactive Google map for his fans showing significant places from Elton’s past and present in Los Angeles. Coming out of that meeting, I had an ah-ha moment: Google Maps Platform offered an entirely new frontier for marketing. Brands could use the immersive features of Maps to engage their audiences in entirely new ways and connect the digital world with the real world. Elton John’s interactive map of Los Angeles elicited a huge buzz and was nominated for a Webby Award. I knew at that moment that geospatial immersive experiences were going to be big. Really big.
The Elton John interactive map experience.
Over the next few years, we worked tirelessly to build out this use case for brands. I led a team in developing a full immersive experience for a fictional retailer so brands could envison and understand the range of capabilities—from 3D shoppable experiences, influencer-driven location campaigns, to custom store finders—all of which would help drive online sales and foot traffic. We also worked with Women Techmakers, Google’s program for women in tech, and built the Women Techmakers Story Map. The results speak for themselves: women who engaged with our storytelling map were twice as likely to join as members of the program.
Today, immersive maps are gaining traction as a marketing tool. Recently, we’ve seen major brands build immersive Maps, like Sony Films to promote their film Here and Zygna to promote their Game of Thrones: Legends mobile game. Music artists, such as Metallica, U2 and KISS, have also used immersive maps to engage their fanbase in new ways. These examples show how a niche, untested idea can become a new standard in marketing and customer engagement.
How maps shaped industries
I love working on Maps Platform. Location is intrinsic to everything we do, and the applications are so vast—from mapping the biodiversity of species to guiding cyclists across Rail Trails. At a recent hackathon we hosted, developers built a disaster resilience tool called Storm Vision which combines 3D visualizations with real-time data for disaster preparedness. Another team used our APIs to bring Philadelphia's vibrant mural art to life in an immersive and engaging experience. Both teams used our Photorealistic 3D Maps API, but their use cases could not be more different.
When I joined Google Maps Platform, I always knew that if we set audacious goals, our team could help build and shape a whole ecosystem around the Google Maps Platform APIs. It’s been 20 years since Google Maps Platform launched and helped developers change the way the world moved. I don’t think anyone could have predicted the impact our products could have had on entire sectors—including transportation and logistics, sustainability, travel and real estate, retail and marketing—to name just a few.
Every day, we’re helping businesses bring new ideas to life, disrupt industries, and move the world forward. I can’t wait to see what the next 20 years will bring with geospatial technology—from drastically changing the way brands interact with consumers, to the rise of AI-driven geospatial data, to deeper XR experiences, to guiding us towards new ways to protect our planet. We’ll never be done evolving the world through maps, and that's a challenge the competitive athlete in me can’t get enough of.
Nina exiting the water at Ironman Lake Tahoe on a chilly 28F / 2C degree morning.
Nina Thatcher is the Head of Marketing for Google Maps Platform and Google Earth based in Seattle, Washington.
