Google seeks UK head for Euro push

Google is recruiting a top marketer for the UK and Ireland as part of its marketing expansion in Europe. Google director of European marketing Lorraine Twohill says that the search giant is conducting “an aggressive push to find marketing people with the right qualities”.

It is understood that the current UK marketing head, Marion Gamel, is to head the company’s expansion into India.

Candidates for the head of marketing for the UK and Ireland are more likely to have an online, telecoms or IT background, with experience of launching new consumer services. Twohill says that whoever is appointed will be “50 per cent the face of marketing for Google in the UK, and 50 per cent the face of the UK within Google.”

In addition to the top UK position there are a number of other marketing positions to fill, she says, although she is unable to say how many.

The news comes two weeks after Marketing Week revealed that Google was actively seeking a head of advertising for Europe (MW November 17). It has recently opened a new office in Manchester to service clients in the Midlands and the North, as well as a new London headquarters. It is also setting up an “inside sales” operation at its European headquarters in Dublin.

Twohill also confirms that Google Space – the four-week experiential project at Heathrow Airport launched last week, where the company has set up an area in which travellers can go online and use Google while waiting for flights – was the project that Bartle Bogle Hegarty was recruited to work on recently.

While BBH will definitely be working with Google on similar projects in the future, it is not Google’s agency of record.