Overnight, you might have seen a lot of people tweeting about the form from the Team Pixel program, telling everyone that they are expected to “feature the Google Pixel device in place of any competitor mobile devices.” Which has understandably rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. And we’ve seen a lot of people announcing that they are leaving Team Pixel over this.
Team Pixel was supposedly a marketing thing for Google; it was supposed to attract influencers to talk about its program. But it’s important to note that Team Pixel is not even run by Google. Instead, Google provides the marketing firm 1000Heads with Pixel devices to seed as they see fit. Basically, Google has nothing to do with Team Pixel other than providing units. However, understandably, Google is going to catch a lot of flack for this from consumers who don’t know the difference. And those of us in Google’s reviewer program will also catch flack too.
This program has been around for many years, and in an email back in 2021, the program mentioned that “there are no specific expectations, but we encourage you to post as often as you want. And there’s no contract to sign”. The only real thing that was mandatory was using the hashtag “#giftfromgoogle” which was more to comply with the FTC, since these were free devices that were not being returned to Google.
Team Pixel used to send out every Pixel device to this group of users, who also had different embargo dates versus those of us in the reviewers program. But lately, they’ve only been sending out one device per year – last year it was the Pixel 8 Pro only. So it’s clear that the program seemed to be on the downtrend lately.
Many influencers are announcing they are leaving Team Pixel
Since this screenshot of the form has leaked, many influencers have announced that they are leaving Team Pixel, and I can’t blame them. Influencers have ethics that they have to keep up. And being forced to showcase a Pixel device over a competitors device is not ethical in the least bit. I hope that the Team Pixel program does end, or in the least gets merged with Pixel Superfans. As Team Pixel was never meant to be a reviewers program, but that’s ultimately what it turned into.
It’s also worth noting that many larger publications and YouTubers – including Android Headlines – are not part of Team Pixel; they fall under the Reviewers Program. The only thing we have to agree to is that we will return the device by the end of the following year. So when you start to see reviews of the Pixel 9, don’t blindly assume that those reviewers agreed to the brand love agreement from Team Pixel.
This is also why we are very upfront in our reviews with our disclaimers. A good example of this is my Motorola Razr+ (2024) review, where I mentioned what color and storage model I had, as well as when I got the device and the fact that Motorola paid for travel but did not sponsor the review and did not see it until it was published. We here at AndroidHeadlines believe that it is very important to be as transparent as possible, especially with reviews. And you can expect a similar disclaimer for our upcoming Pixel 9 reviews, including a disclaimer that we are not part of Team Pixel.