Google Service Brand Analysis

by Rima Cooper Student ID: 1337438 BSNS 7454 Strategic Brand Management

Picture Liam Platt, 2011

1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Google has moved passed the facet of being a multifunctional search engine or a familiar

brand that appears on most computers. This online service corporation has successfully

branded their mark on consumer’s lives by infiltrating their name into the core of people’s

lives. Google is ingrained into online human experiences…Google has evolved from a

brand and now Google is what people do (Thompson, 2008).

To lay a firm foundation within this report, this document briefly explores Google’s

background. More specifically its origins as an idea progressing into reality, taking into

account the marketing strategies used to promote user interaction with its customers. Such

procedures can be seen through:

• The business development and the Google brand and how the mission of

Google is exemplified within the actions the institution.

• The divisions within Google, more specifically services within Google and the

reasons why some services were kept or discontinued.

Furthermore a customer’s perspective of the Google brand is just as important to take into

consideration when developing a brand analysis. Google has developed the art of what a

customers and businesses are looking for as an online brand service. This can be

discovered by analysing:

• AltaVista’s mistake to expand too quickly as a company instead of focussing on

one service and doing that well.

• American technology giant Apple Inc. and the reasoning for their success.

The Google brand is in a most favourable position with the ability to command a vast

amount of devoted followers. However in view of current business practices of Google it is

my recommendation that Google cease from their pursuits to exploit information for

financial gain and promote services for the consumer without the money profits attached,

thus creating a positive rapport with existing and future customer base.

2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................. 1

INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 3

BACKGROUND ........................................................................................................ 4

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND THE BRAND............................................................. 5

GOOGLE DIVISIONS ............................................................................................. 7

THE BRAND EXPERIENCE & RELATIONSHIPS FROM A CUSTOMER’S

PERSPECTIVE ....................................................................................................... 10

MAINTAINING BRAND EQUITY .............................................................................. 12

GOOGLE IS AN ONLINE SERVICE ............................................................................. 15

CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 18

RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................................................. 19

REFERENCES ....................................................................................................... 20

3

INTRODUCTION

The internet has changed the way consumers engage with a brand. The

Harvard Business Review article by Edelman (2010) observes that the

traditional way of marketing is now proving to be unsustainable (Edelman,

2010, p. 64). Lincoln (2011) supports Edelman (2010) by arguing internet

advertising is expected to surpass television and radio advertising within

ten years. Furthermore research has established that customers are more

inclined to investigate a product online, before making a purchase

(Experian Inc, 2010; Lincoln, 2011).

The Google brand has utilised the complexities of the internet to not only

provide free services, such as a search engine, but also reap the benefits

of selling advertising space and services for its customers (Battelle, 2011).

Therefore an adequate question to ask at this point is:

Is Google more interested in serving itself as a business, rather than providing services/products that solely focus on the customer?

This argument will be answered and explored about Google by analysing

the Google brand and the services/products for its consumers and by

exploring the strategies of companies such as AltaVista and Google’s

current brand rival Apple.

4

Google

User satisfied

Media attention

Website traffic increased

Investors

BACKGROUND

Google was created in the heart of America, Fresco California by

University Students Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Together they created

BackRub (1996), a basic search engine that contains more or less the

same approach as what Google is to date. Unable to sell their software

to Yahoo they found an investor who contributed a significant amount of

funds to give birth to what is today a multi-million dollar company -

Google Inc.

The first record of popularity began in 1998, where Google’s

website drew an overwhelming response from its users.

With the increase of media attention, which in turn helped

increase site traffic created a snowball effect of attracting

investors and generating finance as demonstrated in figure 1.1.

Today Google is the number-one search engine in the

United States, U.K, Canada and numerous other countries.

The site attracts more than 400 million individual users and

employs more than 10,000 people (Miller, 2009, p.

14). In 2007, Google was recorded as obtaining

$16,593,986,000 in revenue and $4 billion

profits (Miller, 2009, p. 14). Therefore an

important question to

ask at this particular

juncture is:

How does a search engine company generate such a vast

amount of income, since Google does not charge its users

for searching information? The answer lies in the brand extension of

Google and monetising the technology as a service for the consumer.

Figure 1.1

5

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND THE BRAND

Google is mostly known for its superior capabilities as a web search

engine (Miller, 2009, p. 9). As noted, over 400 million users have used

Google services to date. Clients have also commented that Google is

chosen as the preferred search engine because of its “ease-of-use and

effectiveness” (Miller, 2009, p. 1; Schwartz, 1998). This example

provides evidence that Google has provided a service that satisfies the

user’s expectation, a feature that no rivals can contest. The meaning of

Google (which is a play on the word “googol”), is a mathematical term for

the number 1 followed by 100 zeros (Miller, 2009). Similarly Smith

(2010) adeptly identifies a correlation of the Google brand meaning with

the mathematical term:

The mission and strategy of Google is all

summed up in the origins of its name – googol

The company is positioning itself to deliver all

of the information that goes through everyone’s

hands, eyes, networks, and hard drives in the

future (Smith, 2010, p. 2).

Keller (2008) identifies the concept of branding a service as where the

customer has an indication that the firm has designed a particular service

that is distinctive and communicates the message to its users of what

can be expected (Keller, 2008, pp. 16-17). However the Google website

promotes itself somewhat a little differently from what Smith alluded to in

his research (2010). Instead Google’s mission is self-professed as:

To organise the world’s information and make

it universally accessible and useful.

6

Though the mission statement is stated clearly on Google’s website, the

customer is not provided with any in-depth detail of Google’s purpose

with the ‘organised’ information. Kang and McAllister (2011) instead

accuse Google of commodifying its users, for example the information of

where a user clicks on a website is gathered by Google and used to

make monetary profit. In reality Google is more than just a super

computer search engine, but instead a sophisticated algorithm with the

capability of channelling consumers for advertisers with copious amounts

of money (Miller, 2009, pp. 10-11,15).

7

GOOGLE DIVISIONS

Since Google’s origins in 1998, Google has reorganised itself into seven

divisions: search, ads, YouTube, Android, Chrome, commerce, and the

social network Google + (Stone, 2012, p. 2).

Google’s CEO Larry Page describes his business using the analogy of a

flower bouquet (figure 1.2). In the web article by Stone (2012), Larry

specifically commented that the company was reorganised into a more

structured organisation. Page said if the ‘flowers bloom’ through

customer interaction then the company focuses on maintaining that

particular division. Products such as Google Waves and Knol were

disregarded and unproductive in providing a service, which resulted in its

termination. This means that Google places a high emphasis on service,

popularity with its users, which in turn drives the strategy of the company.

Therefore the seven divisions or the product line reflects the structure of

Google divisions

Figure 1.2

8

the company. Here we can deduce that Google is an online service

company that is run and relies heavily upon customer satisfaction

through interaction.

High customer interaction can be seen with what Miller (2009) alludes to

as the first brand extension of Google: Google AdWords and Google

AdSense. These two components of Google produce a significant

amount of income and service for its intended customers.

o Google AdWords: is designed to provide its consumers with the

tools to create advertising related to their business. The

consumer of AdWords decides what keywords to use when a user

searches a word in Google search. This will ensure that the

audience being advertised is interested in their advertisement.

Cost for the advertiser is only incurred when a potential customer

has clicked on the advertisement.

Selling points include:

Targeted Reach

Greater Control

Measurable Value

o Google AdSense: is compiled with website or the blogger in mind.

This service allows the developer to partake in the earning of

moneys generated through adding Google advertising on a

particular website. Any visitor who clicks on a particular

advertisement will generate income for owner of the website.

Google uses the same technology to search websites for

information and places relevant advertising that matches the

content of the website (Miller, 2009).

Selling points:

9

Advertising relevant for the customer

Easy income generation

Customer placement

Here it is worthy to note that Google website places a strong emphasis

on the personal pronoun ‘you’.

Excerpts from the Google website (2012) for Google Adsense

and Google Adwords focusing on the individual:

“You create your ads”

“Your ads appear on Google”

“You attract customers” (Google, 2012a)

This demonstrates one of the strategies Google implements into their

marketing strategy to gain more customers. The theme of ‘you’ the user

is a common occurrence throughout Google’s website strategy, provides

the user information that Google works around the individual. This

particular concept of ‘individualising the user experience’ will be explored

further on in this report.

10

THE BRAND EXPERIENCE & RELATIONSHIPS FROM A CUSTOMER’S PERSPECTIVE

Google has mastered the skill to identify what the customer wants, not

only as an online web search tool but also as an advertiser for anyone

and any company. This unique ability to provide a service tailor-made for

the customer was initially developed by focussing on its first service –

Google word search. Unlike companies such as AltaVista who decided

to implement an IPO (Initial Public Offering) strategy far too soon, where

investors could contribute and share in the profits of a company and

change the direction of the company.

CASE STUDY: ALTAVISTA

The search engine AltaVista created by Monier and

Burrows in 1995, was the first to develop ‘the crawl’/software.

This particular technology searched website information on the

web and was unsurpassed by no other search engines during that

era, indexing more than 16 million documents. At this point in time

AltaVista was owned by Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) who in turn

was more focussed on selling PC hardware. From here it is

important to note that DEC concentrated on a market that was in

competition with Dell and Compaq, DEC made the grave move to

expand too soon resulting in its acquisition by Compaq. The

takeover of Compaq resulted in what can be described as

AltaVista’s copycat of yahoo “emails, directories, comparison

shopping, topic boards and scads of advertising on the front page”

(Battelle, 2011, p. 52). Compaq then sold AltaVista to CMGI who

was affected by the NASDAQ downward slide in 2000. AltaVista

watched CMGI as its parent company loose more than 90 percent

of its value. CMGI then sold AltaVista to Overature Services Inc.

who was then purchased by Yahoo (Battelle, 2011, pp. 52-53). By

11

this time AltaVista had lost its competing edge with other search

engines, resulting in a diminishing user base and its closure in

2010 (Gustin, 2010).

This example provided by AltaVista clearly demonstrates the outcome of

a company when the focus is not on the individual consumer but rather

the interests of the business. Though there were unforeseen financial

circumstances contributing towards the demise of AltaVista, more

importantly user interactivity was reduced. This meant AltaVista’s

customer moved elsewhere for service satisfaction, resulting in a loss of

confidence. Here we can attribute a crucial element of Brand Equity and

deduce why AltaVista fell from its throne of web search grandmaster.

12

MAINTAINING BRAND EQUITY

Brand Equity is defined as: a greater confidence that consumers place in

a brand than they do in its competitors. This means consumer

confidence is portrayed through loyalty and willingness to pay a premium

price for the brand (Lassar, Mittal, & Sharma, 1995, p. 11). Therefore

while AltaVista was busy trying to sort its internal and external problems,

In 2003 Google was investigating what and how the customer was

searching through trends (Battelle, 2011). By introducing an algorithm

that incorporates human searching behaviour, it is little wonder Google

takes the spot as the leading brand (Millward Brown Optimor, 2007,

2010).

13

Brand equity can be achieved by Davis and Sajtos (2008) emphasis on

companies building long-term relationships with its customer and by

encouraging customers to engage in dialogue with each other (Davis &

Sajtos, 2008, p. 379). This statement provides the reasoning why

Google is the best at making its users satisfied with its service (Battelle,

2011). As peoples’ expectations are met and satisfied, dialogue occurs

and is quickly dispersed through the online social network.

If consumers discuss a particular brand within

the social network environment, information is

dispersed at a rapid rate compared to the

channel of one-to-many (Bar-Joseph, 2010)

This notion conveys the importance of including a concept discovered by

brand consultant Simon Mainwaring. He stresses the importance for

brands to connect emotionally with its consumers or else there would be

no purchase (Mainwaring, 2012), or in Google’s case there would be no

interaction with its services.

Furthermore the aim of every brand is to connect emotionally with the

customers, which in turn increases the likelihood of brand loyalty and

trust. Therefore the traditional decision hierarchy has changed to what

Knapp (2008) and Edelman (2010) came to an agreement and a

realisation that consumers are the best marketers for any brand.

Therefore the consumer has the power to effectively increase or

decrease the equity/credibility of a brand through their experiences with

online communication networks.

14

Traditional Decision Hierarchy (Knapp, 2008)

The New (Decision) Hierarchy (Knapp, 2008)

Mainwaring insists brands must have a face personality, core belief

because identity is critical as it engages customers on a one on one

basis (Mainwaring, 2012). Therefore one can deduce Google has

mastered the art of connecting with the consumer in obtaining trust and

loyalty through the reflection of its financial success (Battelle, 2011;

Google, 2012b).

Ceo Executive

Team

Agents/Franchisees &

Reps

Shareholders

Associates

Consumers & Customers

Consumers & Customers

Associates

Shareholders

Agents/Franchisees &

Representatives Ceo

Executive Team

Consumer connection with brands (Edelman, 2010)

15

GOOGLE IS AN ONLINE SERVICE

As mentioned earlier in this document Google is an online service that

relies substantially upon customer satisfaction and interaction. Any

product/service that Google offers that fails in reaching that objective will

be discontinued to allow further development on divisions that are more

productive. By measuring a customer’s interaction and their online

dialogue, Google can justify its decision to axe products that fail to

generate a substantial amount of user interest and activity.

GOOGLE KNOL:

Google Knol which was a service that Google provided for authors

who wanted to work together to create authoritative articles about

specific topics that they know about. This particular service was

created in 2007 and threatened other encyclopaedia sites such as

Wikipedia and Scholarpedia (Seelan, 2012). However due to low

customer interaction, Google has declared that they would rather

distribute their resources be devoted to high impact products

(Google, 2012c). Furthermore, a Brinkmann (2012) article reports

on additional services like Google Sky Map and Picnik, Google

Buzz and Gears will be removed as they lack traction or promise.

Davis and Sajtos (2008) provide an explanation of Google’s behaviour;

this particular notion with their concept of interaction with a product of

brand tends to create brand loyalty. Their research shows that

customers are more likely to engage with a product/service as the

marketer responds to the customer; they must act and react to each

other (Davis & Sajtos, 2008, p. 377). Therefore Google has in turn

responded to its customers by discontinuing unnecessary services to

enhance those that customers use on a regular basis like search and

AdSense (Battelle, 2011).

16

However there is one brand that continues to threaten Google they are

just as responsive and innovative for customers as Google is. A brand

that is just as worthy to analyse and gather information about their

strategy to attract and maintain customer loyalty and trust. A well

established brand co-founded by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs in 1974.

CASE STUDY: APPLE

In 2011 Apple replaced Google as the world’s most valuable brand

with an estimated brand value of $153.3 billion (Millward Brown

Optimor, 2011, p. 5). Apple’s brand supremacy can be explained

through iterating existing products such as the iPhone and iPad,

Apple’s mission is to be innovative and world changing and

through observing their financial success in the Millward Brown

Optimor report (2011) we can assume Apple is providing a

favourable product/service for its consumers on a consistent

basis. One particular service Apple is ‘fruitful’, with customer

demand is the Apple iTunes programme.

Apple iTunes is a brand extension, a computer programme

that not only allows customers to purchase video and digital music

but also the ability to synch contents such as photos, applications,

contact list etc within an iPhone, iPad or iPod (Tso, Wang, Huang,

& Wang, 2012). This provides the evidence that the iTunes

programme reinforces the use of other Apple products, which in

turn promotes brand equity and therefore resulting in the likelihood

of the continuation of the customers within the brand loyalty loop

(Edelman, 2010). Furthermore the Apple iPhone continues to

contribute to the Apple Brand Equity as being one of the most

popular phones used amongst consumers worldwide. The rise of

the popularity of the internet has contributed to the sales of the

Apple iPhone utilising its smart phone capabilities.

17

GOOGLE’S RESPONSE

In response to Apple’s success in can be said that Google has

developed similar services to compete with market share. Similarly to

Apple’s iTunes, Google has developed the computer programme Google

Play; which functions as a movie, apps, games and book application

store, readily available by users of the android operating system.

Furthermore the android platform is somewhat seen as competition for

the iPhone , but Google CEO Eric Schmidt insists money is made with

the android software promoting Google advertising rather than cell phone

hardware (Battelle, 2011).

Services such as Apple iTunes and Google Play support products within

the parent brand. These services generate brand recall by fostering a

trusted relationship between the brand and the consumer.

Favourable Customer Brand Experience

For Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Google CEO

Schmidt both agree that money is made whilst people

are on the go via the mobile rather than on the desktop

of a household computer (Battelle, 2011; Goggin, 2009). These fierce

competitors had the foresight to recognise that the internet could be used

to sell and promote their services and products.

Satisfy Relationship Trust

18

CONCLUSION

As technology has progressed, consumers have moved away from

conventional ways of engaging with brands, instead we find they

are more inclined to experience a brand online (Edelman, 2010).

For this reason it is imperative that marketers adopt a brand

strategy that incorporates an online presence.

Google continues to produce and implement services that

incorporate the electronic medium to further expand as a business

and improving customer relationship. Though Google’s main

service is provided through the form of an engine search it is

obvious to see that Google has elements which favour itself as a

business enterprise rather than serving the public. Such services

include AdSense, AdWords, Google Play and Google search all

provide Google with the power to generate substantial amounts of

revenue.

As a result Google’s business influence can be summarised with a

quote provided by English author and philosopher Sir Francis

Bacon:

“Knowledge is power”

Sir Francis Bacon (1531-1626)

Google’s ability to command a vast amount of devoted followers to

their brand has been attributed to obtaining customer satisfaction

with its free services. The end results include an exploitation of

information for Google’s financial gain, which provides evidence

why Google is one ‘mean green American money making machine’.

19

RECOMMENDATIONS

Learn from and not follow the example of AltaVista and Lycos, where

corporations bought and re-sold these particular search engines. This

creates a catalyst for unsettling within the organisation and the likelihood

of a company downfall.

Ensure founders of a company continue with their leadership and

direction into the future of Google. This will ensure stability and the

continuity needed for further progress as a company.

Maintain a control on IPO’s (Initial public offering), whilst ensuring

investors aren’t influencing the overall vision and direction of a company.

Rather than using existing directives that compromises customer

satisfaction and expectation.

An online service must consider customer satisfaction as a top priority,

encourage customers to discuss their brand experience within the social

network environment.

Private information should not be used to sell to other companies without

the consent of the person involved. Transparency and dialogue with a

customer is key factor to encourage trust relationship with a consumer.

A company should remain unbiased by reassuring the public that

services will benefit the customer, rather than focusing on the pursuit for

monetary gain.

20

REFERENCES

Bar-Joseph, U. (2010). Social Media Marketing: Generating Business Leads Retrieved 24/03, 2012, from http://www.optify.net/social-media/social-media-marketing-generating-business-leads/

Battelle, J. (2011). The Search : How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Brinkmann, M. (2012). Google Drops Another Batch Of Services, Products. Retrieved from www.ghacks.net/2012/04/21/google-drops-another-batch-of-services-products/

Davis, R., & Sajtos, L. (2008). Measuring Consumer Interactivity in Response to Campaigns Coupling Mobile and Television Media. Journal of Advertising Research, 48(3), 375.

Edelman, D. C. (2010). Branding in The Digital Age You're Spending Your Money In All the Wrong Places (Vol. 88). Boston, MA, ETATS-UNIS: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.

Experian Inc. (2010). The 2010 digital marketer: Benchmark and trend report. In Experian Marketing Services (Ed.).

Goggin, G. (2009). Adapting the mobile phone: The iPhone and its consumption. Continuum, 23(2), 231-244. doi: 10.1080/10304310802710546

Google. (2012a). AdWords - Pay-Per-Click Online Advertising. Retrieved April 20th, 2012, from https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLoginservice=adwords&hl=en_NZ&ltmpl=adwords&passive=true&ifr=false&alwf=true&continue=https://adwords.google.com/um/gaiaauth?apt%3DNone%26ltmpl%3Dadwords&sacu=1&sarp=1

Google. (2012b). Google finance: Google Retrieved 27/04, 2012, from http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AGOOG#

Google. (2012c). Knol: FAQ's, 2012, from https://knol-redirects.appspot.com/faq.html

Gustin, S. (2010). Yahoo Shutters Delicious, Buzz, AltaVista. Epicenter Retrieved 23/04, 2012, from http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/12/rip-altavista/

21

Kang, H., & McAllister, M. P. (2011). Selling You and Your Clicks: Examining the Audience Commodification of Google. tripleC, Vol 9(2).

Keller, K. L. (2008). Strategic Brand Management (3rd ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Knapp, D. E. (2008). The Brand Promise: How Ketel One, Costco, Make-A-Wish, Tourism Vancouver, and Other Leading Brands Make and Keep the Promise That Guarantees Success. United States of America: McGraw-Hill.

Lassar, W., Mittal, B., & Sharma, A. (1995). Measuring customer-based brand equity. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 12(4), 11-19.

Lincoln, N. (2011). The Relationship Between Internet Marketing, Search Volume, and Product Sales. Undergraduate Honors research distinction in Economics Honors Research Thesis, The Ohio State University, Ohio. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1811/48845

Mainwaring, S. (2012). Behind the Brand--Simon Mainwaring: We First Behind the Brand Retrieved 23/03, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHoKOOilgRU

Miller, M. (2009). Googlepedia : the ultimate Google resourc (3rd ed.): Indianapolis, Ind. : Que.

Millward Brown Optimor. (2007). 2007 Brandz:Top 100 Most Powerful Brands. In Millward Brown Optimor (Ed.), Brandz:Top 100 Most Powerful Brands (pp. 1-27).

Millward Brown Optimor. (2010). 2010 Brandz:Top 100 Most Powerful Brands. In M. B. Optimor (Ed.), Brandz:Top 100 Most Powerful Brands (pp. 1-72).

Millward Brown Optimor. (2011). 2011 Brandz Top 100 Most Powerful Brands. In M. B. Optimor (Ed.), Brandz:Top 100 Most Powerful Brands (pp. 1-53).

Schwartz, C. (1998). Web search engines. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 49(11), 973-982. doi: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4571(1998)49:11<973::aid-asi3>3.0.co;2-z

Seelan, G. (2012). The Power of Social Media Marketing and Business development. SMM Press: Social Media Marketing Press. Retrieved from http://www.socialmediamarketingpress.com/articles-2/584/the-power-of-social-media-marketing-and-business-development%C2%A0%C2%A0/

Smith, R. (2010). Google Means Every: Innovation for Innovators an occasional column exploring principles, models, and theories of innovation in business and management. Research Technology Management.

22

Stone, B. (2012). The Education of Google's Larry Page. Technology Retrieved 23/04, 2012, from http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-04/the-education-of-googles-larry-page

Thompson, J. (2008). Brandjunkies on the influence of Brands: The Brandjunkie Survey Results. Brand Channel Retrieved 21/04, 2012, from www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=415#t104

Tso, Y.-C., Wang, S.-J., Huang, C.-T., & Wang, W.-J. (2012). iPhone social networking for evidence investigations using iTunes forensics. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Ubiquitous Information Management and Communication, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.