Google ‘Team Pixel’ Gaffe Frustratingly Blurs the Line Between Influencers and Reviewers

After debuting the Pixel 9 series smartphones earlier this week to a mostly positive reception, Google’s good vibes have been hurt by controversy surrounding the company’s influencer marketing group, Team Pixel.

Team Pixel is a group of influencers that Google works with to promote its Pixel smartphones. At a surface level, the relationship is that Google provides people with Pixel devices with the expectation that the creator will make some content associated with it.

Some former members, including tech and smartphone YouTuber Mark’s Tech, claim that the program used to be conducive to proper smartphone reviews, as there weren’t strict guidelines concerning what creators could say.

As 9to5Google reports, past Team Pixel agreements specifically noted that there weren’t expectations about posting only positive content about the Pixel. Creators were encouraged to be “truthful, accurate,” and share their “honest opinions and experiences with whatever product or feature you’re posting about.”

However, as a screenshot from the controversial Team Pixel creator agreement shows, the laissez-faire approach was ditched in favor of stricter terms that eliminate the possibility of any Team Pixel member ever producing anything resembling objective content.

“By opting into this program, do you acknowledge that you are expected to feature the Google Pixel device in place of any competitor mobile devices? Please note that if it appears are being preferred over the Pixel, we will need to cease the relationship between the brand and the creator,” the Team Pixel agreement asks. Participants can then choose between “Yes, I acknowledge and agree,” or “No, I do not agree.”

Understandably, this language has rubbed many the wrong way. For some, it has also cast doubt on the legitimacy and integrity of all Google Pixel reviews, including the Pixel 9 reviews people who aren’t part of Team Pixel are working on.

However, there are two significant things to consider. One, Google has already reversed course on this — more on that below — and two, Team Pixel is an invite-only influencer program that has no bearing on the typical publications, websites, blogs, and YouTube channels. For example, PetaPixel was at this week’s Made by Google event and is reviewing numerous Pixel 9 devices and has never seen or been asked to agree to anything like the controversial Team Pixel agreement. If a company ever made demands or set conditions concerning a review, PetaPixel would never review the product. Many others hold to these fundamental standards.

But situations like this one with Team Pixel and others like an Insta360 issue earlier this year and debates concerning the ethics of camera press trips, cast a pall over reviews in general. While the line between reviewer and influencer has always been clear for many people and publications, the divide has become increasingly blurry in some places.

The reasons are complex, but at their core, some companies want as much control as possible over the messaging about their products, and if they can exercise that control while content still appears to be sincere and untainted, all the better. There are good reasons the Federal Trade Commission has such strict rules about disclosing any advertising partnership, and among them is that some companies employ this strategy of quasi-review marketing.

Part of what makes this Team Pixel situation so jarring for creators is that Google has historically not been like this at all, something the company itself has acknowledged by virtue of walking the Team Pixel language back.

“#TeamPixel is a distinct program, separate from our press and creator reviews programs. The goal of #TeamPixel is to get Pixel devices into the hands of content creators, not press and tech reviewers. We missed the mark with this new language that appeared in the #TeamPixel form yesterday, and it has been removed,” Kayla Geier, Google Communications Manager, tells PetaPixel over email.

This situation, like similar ones before it, embodies the importance of separating content created by hand-picked, curated influencers and brand ambassadors from the work done by bona fide reviewers and content creators, of which there are many across every possible platform. When a review comes with strings attached, it’s no longer a review. When content has conditions, it is no longer objective — it’s an ad.

Image credits: Featured image created using an asset licensed via Depositphotos.