The ‘Team Pixel’ Drama Exposed a Disconnect Between Creators and Brands

Last week, Google updated its agreement with “Team Pixel” members to stipulate that they weren’t allowed to support any other smartphone brand or else risk ejection from the platform. Because many in that program considered themselves reviewers, it exposed a major disconnect between how many perceived themselves versus how Google perceived them.

For several years, Google has used the “Team Pixel” group as a way to work with what it classifies as influencers to promote its Pixel smartphones. Google provides these people with Pixel devices with the expectation that the creator will make some content associated with it to help market the product. The term “influencer” is often conflated with “creator” which already muddies the waters, but that gets even murkier when some of these creators consider themselves reviewers — and rightly so.

According to former members, Team Pixel used to feel akin to the way traditional media interacts with the brand, which is conducive to fair reviews — it was just a way for people who weren’t members of “traditional” media to gain access to product. As reported last week, these creators were encouraged to be “truthful, accurate,” and share their “honest opinions and experiences with whatever product or feature you’re posting about.”

But last week, that changed with the addition of a “Brand Love” section to the Team Pixel agreement.

“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 agreement read.

Google eventually walked this section back, saying it “missed the mark.” The retraction showed how the company sees a difference between traditional media and influencer marketing — this perspective of influencers isn’t unique to Google but the distinction caught some of those in the Team Pixel group off guard.

The discussions from traditional media, myself included, tried to explain the difference between influencer marketing and journalism, but in doing so it made us sound like we were the ones setting up that distinction, which is not the case. It’s companies who did this, we just happened to be aware of it.

“The way tech bloggers are looking down at video creators today as it pertains to TeamPixel while using terms like ‘real journalist’ (the way newspaper and magazine writers looked down at bloggers 15 years ago using the same term) is gross,” YouTuber Andru Edwards wrote on Threads.

“I’ve been telling my fellow creators for a couple years now that it feels like the only way you can earn respect from brands is by working at a mainstream media company writing reviews for the exact same products we’re already reviewing on our own dime and it seems like I was correct,” Shannon Morse, another YouTube creator, wrote in agreement.

“Google’s response makes me feel like they don’t value me as a tech reviewer and it makes me question why I’m even trying.”

Morse touches on the real crux of the issue. The media landscape has changed significantly over the last decade to where an independent blogger or YouTuber can share real, valuable opinions and reach thousands of people with them. Their opinions are just as valid as those who work for more traditional media, and yet Google — and again, Google is not alone here — doesn’t see them on equal footing. It’s not journalists that are gatekeeping journalism, it’s brands.

Major brands see independent creators — into which YouTubers are bundled — as different from people associated with known publications. In this case, Google knew it couldn’t make these journalists agree to only say good things, that’s not how traditional reviews work and Google interacts with them using public relations. But because it sees influencers differently, these other creators are bundled into “marketing,” which is entirely different: marketing works to actively promote a brand positively.

That is not to say that all journalists are beacons of integrity — they most certainly are not — and neither are all folks who fall under the influencer banner. As Engadget‘s Cherlynn Low explains, the line has been significantly blurred between the two groups, for better and for worse. That said, it doesn’t help that some influencers lack understanding of how embargoes and company relationships work, leading some to blatantly break non disclosure agreements, either without even realizing it or without caring. For example, one YouTuber has violated Google’s Pixel 9 Pro embargo 18 times already.

Low also notes that this “beef” that arose between journalists and influencers isn’t an “us versus them” situation, it’s a matter of how Google handled the program and how it viewed certain people. That’s a Google problem, not a reviewer problem.

“If you have an audience that you’ve built organically over time, at some point you’ll be contacted by a brand who wants to work with you. This is not the same as a television or print placement where the brand has total control over what is said or shown. The fact is you’ve built an audience organically because the audience trusts and respects your opinions on something. This is what they’ve grown to expect,” Ted Forbes, who operates The Art of Photography YouTube channel told me over the phone today. Forbes was a Team Pixel member as of a couple of years ago, but is no longer.

“As the world of ‘influence’ has expanded there are a lot of people willing to take a product for free in exchange for praise in return. This can also mean pledging ‘exclusivity’ to only talking about the one brand. Influencers who agree to this type of exchange are typically less experienced and don’t understand what this means,” he continues.

“This makes it very difficult today to work with certain brands as they don’t understand the difference of someone doing an actual review versus someone unboxing and telling you the product is the greatest thing ever. I don’t work for an established publication. I built my own brand so I often fall into this grey area that brands don’t seem to understand.”

This whole situation highlights the disconnect between creators of all kinds and brands. Brands see certain people as popular mouthpieces who can be leveraged to sell products while those folks might see themselves as tech reviewers — that definitely happened here. Many members of Team Pixel expressed their displeasure with the new contract line item and openly stated it, which helped bring about its removal.

This blurred line between influencer and reviewer is why the FTC created new rules around how brands are allowed to “leverage” these people.

“Today the FTC issued a new rule striking against the persistent problem of fake and false consumer reviews and testimonials,” the FTC’s Michael Atleson writes. “Consumers should be able to trust the authenticity of feedback they read, hear, or see about a product or service. But digital content — including reviews and testimonials — has always been easy to fake, and with generative AI tools it’s now even easier. That makes our new rule even more significant.”

Google’s contract change deals directly with the “buying positive reviews” section of the FTC’s new guidelines, which “prohibits businesses from providing compensation or other incentives conditioned on the writing of consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment, either positive or negative. It clarifies that the conditional nature of the offer of compensation or incentive may be expressly or implicitly conveyed.”

Team Pixel was not considered a “reviews” program, which meant Google felt as though it had to clarify that anything those members said about Pixel devices was “paid” — their compensation was, most of the time, just a device and not cash. But because they were “paid,” at least in Google’s eyes, it needed to not only clarify that what they did wasn’t a review, but go further to make sure it was positioned as straight-up marketing.

This is of course all the more confusing for both that type of creator and that creator’s audience. Viewers don’t want to feel advertised to and many of these creators wouldn’t feel comfortable being that mouthpiece either. Google was wrong to make that assumption, and it is reasonable that Team Pixel creators who see themselves as journalists and tech reviewers are offended that Google mischaracterized them and their work.

All companies who have influencer programs need to re-evaluate them to determine who among them is a spokesperson and who sees themselves as a reviewer. The “Team Pixel” situation was a messy, poor way for that message to get broadcast, but hopefully, Google and other companies got that message loud and clear.

Image credits: Elements of header photo by Google and others licensed via Depositphotos.