I am not your Zero Moment of Truth, Google. I am a human being! And you are soaking in it dear reader.

When you pay attention to the man behind the curtain, you learn real quick -- in case you needed learning -- that Google views you not as a person, interested in things like search and smartphones and connecting via social media.

Rather, you are a conglomeration of identity and habit, location and interest, weaknesses and desires.

To be sold to.

Sooner you understand this, the sooner you accept that Android is open and for the benefit of users and free and standards are all just still more marketing words from Google.

They are not values. They are not strategies. They are buzzwords.

Google is an advertising company.

And with identity services such as Google+ and real-time location-based platforms realized through Android, Google gets better at knowing what advertising appeals work best on you.

Sometimes, I just have to chuckle at the small brains that proclaim APPLE IS A MARKETING COMPANY! That's how they sell those expensive devices! Through marketing and reality distortion!

No, dear child. Google is a marketing company. The most profitable one in the world. 

And they are marketing you. Every moment of every day.

A few datapoints for those of you still clinging to the view that Google is an Internet company. Or search engine.

At Google, we call this online decision-making moment the Zero Moment of Truth -- or simply ZMOT.

Winning the Zero Moment of Truth is a powerful new eBook by Jim Lecinski, Google's Managing Director of US Sales & Service and Chief ZMOT Evangelist. Jim shares how to get ahead at this critical new marketing moment, supported by exclusive market research, personal stories, and insights from C-level executives at global leaders like General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, and VivaKi.

If you're a marketer, a CEO, a sales rep, or an aspiring entrepreneur, this eBook on marketing strategies and the ZMOT will help you understand this shift in the marketing landscape and show you the strategies it takes to win.

It even works for presidential campaigns!

This election cycle, the usual flurry of activity has only just begun — even as the race has seen unprecedented volatility, with six different candidates having led Iowa polls at some point. The final result on January 3 remains difficult to predict, but the presidential primary so far has made it apparent that traditional political campaigns are being transformed by forces that can be explained through a framework that is redefining consumer marketing campaigns: Google’s “Zero Moment of Truth” concept.

The Zero Moment of Truth builds on the long-held marketing idea that the “First Moment of Truth” occurs at the store when a shopper selects a product and the “Second Moment of Truth” occurs at home when the shopper experiences that product. The Zero Moment of Truth is the decision-point after a stimulus leads a consumer to seek more information but before he arrives at the store — or in politics, before a voter solidifies his choice.

The Zero Moment of Truth is whenever technology informs an impending decision, whether buying a car, going on a date, or supporting a political candidate. A study conducted by Google and market research firm Shoppers Sciences this spring found that the number of sources used by a person for the average purchase has doubled, from 5.2 to 10.4, and shoppers use each source almost twice as heavily as in the past. In politics, the Internet provides voters with vastly more resources to follow campaign developments and view candidate speeches, debates, interviews, and political analysis than ever before.

This election cycle, “primetime” is not watching live television at 8:00 p.m., but viewing YouTube videos at lunch. Campaigns and Elections reported that a survey by Public Opinion Strategies and SEA Polling found close to one-third of likely voters nationwide said they had not watched live TV in the past week and 45 percent said live TV isn’t their primary mode of consuming video. Traditional voter contact methods like direct mail and phone calls are stimuli that drive voters to conduct further research — and the Internet provides an infinite resource to validate or refute campaign messages. Candidates this year have surged in the polls, only to face that Zero Moment of Truth for voters and then see their standing fizzle.

Hate on Apple all you want. 

Just know that if you do, it's probably because you've been marketed to think that.

[Thanks to reader, James for the presidential link!]