According to Lorraine Twohill, senior vice president of global marketing at Google, marketing is about knowing the user and knowing the magic.

Well, the first part is not rocket science. That's obvious. But the term knowing the magic is sort of new. According to Lorraine, this means: "

Knowing the user means understanding who your consumers are. Not just knowing who they are, but what they need, what are their deep insights, and understanding how we can help them. Knowing the magic means knowing what’s in the hearts and minds of your engineers and your product managers, and what they’re building. Connecting the two means bringing the magic built by engineers to the world in a way that is relevant, meaningful, and compelling to the everyday consumer.

To read more details about this interview and Google's take on storytelling, data, science and even why they created Social and Promotional tabs in gmail, go to this article.