The French firm’s former CMO will now work for Kirk Perry, who left Procter & Gamble last year and leads Google’s ‘Global Client and Agency Solutions’ group.
As for the cosmetics company, it has not announced a successor as of yet, meaning some of Speichert’s responsibilities will be handled by Marie Gulin, who was heading up the US marketing role anyway, having spent over 15 years with the company.
Success
Speichert, 39, became CMO of L’Oreal USA in 2010 after 13 years at Colgate-Palmolive, and was named CMO-Americas in July; before taking over as global CMO, succeeding Marc Menesguen, who became president of L’Oreal’s global Consumer Products Division.
The aim was to recreate Speichert’s success he had found in the US, on a global scale, and it is that success which also caught Google’s eye.
The top priority for the marketing man at L’Oréal was thinking about digital as a catalyst for change and marketing reinvention; something the make-up maker has excelled in recently, with big investment made in digital platforms.
Now it appears Speichert will be tasked with expanding that strategy at one of the world’s largest online companies.
In recent years Google has been making a concerted effort to bring brand advertising dollars online, having built a $50 billion advertising business thanks largely to direct-response advertisers.
But with people wising up to digital marketing and making sure the squeeze the most out for their money, Google has been making a concerted effort to get big budget brand marketers on board.
"Brand advertising is probably one of our biggest bets not just this year but going into 2014," Google's VP-display advertising Neal Mohan said at an industry event last September.