Google trolls Amazon cloud event with 2nd Las Vegas Sphere takeover this month

For the second time this month, Google has advertised on the Las Vegas Sphere. An active Google Cloud campaign this week follows Chrome ads on the Sphere during the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

In the lead-up to the Formula One race on November 18, the Sphere displayed the Chrome logo. Google is an “Official Partner of the McLaren Formula 1 Team and the McLaren MX Extreme E Team.” That multi-year sponsorship began in 2022 and sees the Android and Chrome logos on race cars. (The browser icon appears on the wheels.) 

We got a spherical Chrome logo earlier this month with race cars zipping by and a “Built for speed” tagline. 

Meanwhile, Amazon today kicked off its week-long AWS re:Invent cloud enterprise conference. Google is responding with a Sphere ad meant to depict how companies have stored petabytes of data on its cloud. The design incorporates a million such data particles – inspired by generative art – that form the Cloud logo. 

From Monday to Sunday, there are two spots (90 seconds long) every hour from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. PT. There are also evening “takeovers” on Tuesday and Wednesday from 7 to 11 p.m. PT.

Besides spoiling Amazon’s shows, there’s an easter egg — type “$gcloud” into the Google Cloud console shell — in the animation advertising Cloud Next ’24, which is moving to Las Vegas after several years at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Google is currently offering early bird pricing for the April 9-11 event.