Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Google, The King of Brands
It's a small surprise that google was voted this year's most valuable brand, knocking Microsoft out of the top spot.
So, what makes a brand "most valuable"? For starters, everyday use, and word-of-mouth figure prominently in the equation. The more people touch a brand on a daily basis, the more opportunity it has to become important and meaningful to them. Google has done a lot in the past few years to create visibility and dependency among its consumer-base users - and they've been progressive in anticipating consumer need - sometimes before consumers themselves.
I was telling this story yesterday at lunch with my good friends Mark and Brian from IdeaPark in Minneapolis: a few years ago when google offered gmail, I accepted the then-coveted invitation and got myself a gmail account. The kicker is, I didn't use that account up until about a month ago, when I did my first google AdWords buy to promote my business and had to use my gmail to access the interface. Today when I log into google, my customized dashboard lists AdWords, gmail, Blogger, and Alerts: services I use everyday. Google keeping them all in one place keeps me in touch with them in a way that is easy, quick and relatively painless (except when having to up the bid on my AdWords, but that's a blog for another day). My point is, google anticipated consumers' need to use these related types of services, and to have them displayed in one easy- to-access location. In doing so, google made itself invaluable to me.
So today, I congratulate google for having the foresight and savvy to tap into and respond to consumer needs. But as with everything, I can't help but wonder if they'll keep up the pace, or stop to revel in this success long enough for another brand to capture the market by creating an even more meaningful brand experience. And no, I don't have ideas about how to do that. But if google wants to contact me, I'd be happy to put together a proposal to get them some customer insight.
It's a small surprise that google was voted this year's most valuable brand, knocking Microsoft out of the top spot.
So, what makes a brand "most valuable"? For starters, everyday use, and word-of-mouth figure prominently in the equation. The more people touch a brand on a daily basis, the more opportunity it has to become important and meaningful to them. Google has done a lot in the past few years to create visibility and dependency among its consumer-base users - and they've been progressive in anticipating consumer need - sometimes before consumers themselves.
I was telling this story yesterday at lunch with my good friends Mark and Brian from IdeaPark in Minneapolis: a few years ago when google offered gmail, I accepted the then-coveted invitation and got myself a gmail account. The kicker is, I didn't use that account up until about a month ago, when I did my first google AdWords buy to promote my business and had to use my gmail to access the interface. Today when I log into google, my customized dashboard lists AdWords, gmail, Blogger, and Alerts: services I use everyday. Google keeping them all in one place keeps me in touch with them in a way that is easy, quick and relatively painless (except when having to up the bid on my AdWords, but that's a blog for another day). My point is, google anticipated consumers' need to use these related types of services, and to have them displayed in one easy- to-access location. In doing so, google made itself invaluable to me.
So today, I congratulate google for having the foresight and savvy to tap into and respond to consumer needs. But as with everything, I can't help but wonder if they'll keep up the pace, or stop to revel in this success long enough for another brand to capture the market by creating an even more meaningful brand experience. And no, I don't have ideas about how to do that. But if google wants to contact me, I'd be happy to put together a proposal to get them some customer insight.
Labels: google, IdeaPark, most valuable brands
