Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Google Defines Meaningful Tech Marketing

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Google-Sesame-Street

This week, I wrote about three once-proud technology companies that are trying to save their businesses by embracing a marketing playbook straight out of the Don Draper era. Yahoo!, eBay, and AOL have all recently chosen to go with expensive, interruptive advertising campaigns rather than try something different and meaningful. Perhaps they should have taken the path to success of their number-one competitor, Google.

Google was named the most valuable brand in the annual Millward Brown BrandZ study for the third consecutive year in 2009. Not bad for a company that does almost no marketing. Well, it does some marketing; for example, the company launched a series of outdoor billboards recently to drive awareness of its suite of business apps. But traditional, interruptive marketing by Google is very, very rare. A lot of what makes Google a valuable brand comes from its great search engine and series of useful tools. One could argue that everything Google does is “meaningful marketing.” In other words, by offering useful, free software tools such as Gmail and Google Maps, the company draws people to its search-engine business, where it makes money on every AdWords click. But let’s save this angle for a future post. Instead, I want to highlight a few of the little things Google does that make it the leader in meaningful technology marketing.

The Google Home Page

Google understands that its home page is very valuable real estate. Tens of millions of people per month visit Google.com to start their many, diverse searches. But instead of ceding its home page to advertisers who would love to capture its eyeballs, Google puts its visitors first and offers a clean, clutter-free experience. This “page of truth” sends a clear message to users and clearly differentiates versus the competition such as MSN and Yahoo! It clearly communicates that searchers come first at Google, and its traffic is not merely sold out to the highest bidder.

But Google sometimes does change this home page… when it wants to celebrate a milestone or draw attention to an issue. People are often surprised and delighted to see how Google has toyed with its logo to highlight a holiday or news item. Recently, for example, the company celebrated the 40th Anniversary of Sesame Street with several logos, including the one shown above. By highlighting the program on its home page, Google actually drew more media attention to the milestone as well. Other special logos in November 2009 included the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, NASA’s discovery of water on the moon, Father Frost’s Birthday in Russia, and National Teacher Day in Vietnam. Instead of offering us another meaningless banner ad like Yahoo.com does, with these little touches Google earns a special place in our hearts.

Free Wi-Fi for Airports

Google always seems to be adding services for Internet users while asking for nothing in return. The latest example is its offer of free Wi-Fi service in 47 airports across the U.S. through January 15, 2010. It is a great gift for weary travelers who are often stuck in airports while trying to see loved ones for the holidays. One might expect that the “price” for free access is being forced to see a Google ad when you successfully log on. Instead the company directs users to a page where they offer the chance to donate to one of three charities that Google supports. And Google will match donations of up to $250,000 per airport.

Viral Video

Last week while I was compiling examples of the meaningless ads for technology companies in my last post, someone in our office forwarded a “commercial” for Google. I discovered a few videos under the title of “Google Search Stories” that blew me away. Check it out:

What you find here is TV commercial-quality production of a lovely ad for Google. In 30 seconds, these videos bring deep emotion while showing off many of the latest and greatest Google features. It’s no wonder that the 40,000-and-growing viewers give it five stars. And in case you thought Google went off and hired a hot creative agency to put these together, think again. These videos were created in-house by staff at the Google Creative Lab. Shouldn’t every company know its consumers and products well enough to do a brilliant ad in-house versus outsourcing it to people who spend a handful of hours watching from the outside? But I digress…

Conclusion

All of these little things from Google come with little pomp and almost no advertising budgets. Instead of clever ad messages that tell you Google is a great brand, the company uses its consumer access and brilliant employees to actually do things that make us more effective and happier throughout our day.

At this point you might be wondering: Why has Google chosen a meaningful marketing path while Yahoo!, eBay, and AOL all are failing to break through? After all, each company has developed great products and services in the past and they all hire similarly smart people. They are strategic enough to do competitive analysis and understand what Google is up to. So why the difference? It’s hard to tell, but I believe that a lot of it comes down to the fact that Google has a clear Brand Purpose. Google exists to index the world’s information, it believes in a philosophy of “do no evil,” and it has founders who are still actively, passionately steering the company. These factors give the company a basis for decision making that is clear and differentiated, and it means that no pricey advertising agency or clever tagline is required to make a campaign to keep the company “cool.”

Next week, I have the opportunity to present my book to employees at Google’s San Francisco office as part of its Authors@Google program. I look forward to honoring these meaningful technology marketers and learning more about what makes them special.

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Posted in Organizational Behavior, Technology | 6 Comments »

Non-meaningful Technology Marketing

Monday, November 30th, 2009

In case you haven’t noticed, there has been a rash of new marketing activity in the realm of technology brands. Maybe they’ve been gearing up for a load of holiday shopping searches, or maybe the launch of Microsoft’s Bing search engine has prompted the marketplace to action. Either way, much of it is horrible, and I feel compelled to get on my soapbox and wag a finger at some of the biggest brands in the businesses who are heaping hundreds of millions of dollars of marketing messages on our poor eyeballs.

First up is Yahoo!, which is surely at risk of feeling the sting from Bing, and continues to lose pace with the search engine champ, Google. This fall, the company decided to respond to new innovations from Bing and continued strength from Google by, you guessed it, launching a big, expensive traditional equity campaign. Take a look for yourself:

Yahoo! is in the middle of dropping $100 million on this “It’s Y!ou” global campaign. You wouldn’t know it from this one-minute commercial, but Yahoo! has added some modest changes to its website to add personalization. But it seems to be doing little so far, as its share of search was down from 18.8% in September to 18.0% in October. That’s a withering one-month change, and makes one wonder how much farther it would fall without all of the positive impacts of this ad campaign (ahem).

Then there’s eBay, a company that is now considered a “traditional digital” business. This once-hot business is flattening as consumers have grown tired of auction-based buying and eBay’s fees. Not to fear, though—a fresh campaign will do the trick, right? Here’s a look at how eBay is trying to convince shoppers that it has the “It” they are looking for:

Finally, we come to AOL. It is another once-proud company that is really on the ropes. The company is doing everything it can to add some positive buzz as it prepares to separate from Time Warner. It first hired a charismatic CEO, Tim Armstrong, from Google, who has toured the tech conferences and marketers’ boardrooms with plenty of promises of a “new AOL.” Naturally, that includes spending millions on a new logo and branding campaign. In this case, AOL found that its brand represented more than a single logo could define (that always spells trouble on the creative brief!). So it has chosen to place its brand name over dozens of other objects and photographs, as seen below. The blogosphere’s reaction is perhaps best seen in GigaOM’s article: “AOL Reveals Lame New Look & Logo.”

aolreveals

Conclusion

It pains me to see these three once-innovative brands resort to some of the most traditional, tired marketing playbook pages. They all have bought the traditional ad-agency story that all you need is a snappy look, a cool tagline (preferably with an exclamation point), and bucket-loads of money to shove your new positioning in front of eager eyeballs. Then again, all three of these brands rose to prominence during the dot-com years of the late 1990s, when billions were blown on Super Bowl ads, sock puppets, and cannon gerbils. The lesson that they missed is that great companies don’t need to tell their customers that they are great. Instead, they need to make great products and services that people love to talk about. And they need to make meaningful marketing that people love to talk about, too.

On Wednesday, I will share the latest marketing work from a truly great technology company that continues to get it.

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Posted in Marketing Without Meaning, Organizational Behavior, Technology | 3 Comments »

QR Code Marketing: Meaning Needed

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

Much has been written about how mobile marketing is going to be the next great way for marketers to connect with customers. The latest hype fuel is the success of the iPhone and thousands of applications.  But another trend is gaining pace in the mobile world: QR codes.

QR codes are a kind of two-dimensional bar code. In marketing to date, they have been used mainly to make it easy for a mobile phone to communicate via the Web. They can send your phone to a mobile webpage, or direct it to download information such as songs, videos, or photos. QR codes are increasingly appearing in magazines as part of print ads. One might dismiss this idea immediately as a second-coming of the ill-fated Cue Cat, but let’s give it the benefit of the doubt and look further.

For a look at QR codes in action, let’s take the example above of a Polo clothing print ad that appeared in The Week magazine. Here, a QR code and directions in the lower right corner allow readers to whip out their mobile phones and shop online, read Ralph Lauren magazine stories, and watch Ralph Lauren videos. It’s an interesting concept – and I could see some ways in which people would be willing to engage with the brand in this way.  If you’re on a train on the way to work, or at home reading on the weekend, it could be interesting to pull out your phone and check out the latest tennis fashions from Ralph Lauren.

I followed the instructions to give it a try myself. I texted RLQR4 to 23000. In a few minutes I was instructed to visit m.ralphlauren.com on my Treo 700’s browser. From there I had to navigate to download a QR reader. After a few clicks the site asked for my cell carrier and confirmation that I had a Treo 700. Then disaster struck: Either the Treo or Sprint was not covered by the QR software. Alas, my search for meaning was over and I ended up wasting my time with this ad.

Despite the hype and gee-whiz factor of new technology, I’m not sure QR code marketing is here to stay. First, there’s a huge education factor. Geeks like me who bother to download the software are less than 5% of the general population. Second, the range of browsers, phones, and service providers make mobile marketing a mess at this point.

Finally, there’s the issue of whether or not QR codes are meaningful for consumers. If these codes don’t excite people in their early use, adoption is likely to lag. In the example above, I really question Polo’s strategy in using QR codes to simply open up a mobile store link with a few articles and videos. Magazine readers are not necessarily in shopping mode, and we can always open up our laptop for a much better shopping experience when we get home or to the office. I was able to get to the site on my laptop and the content is extremely basic. For example, a Style Guide section on “insights, tips and essential information on Ralph Lauren style” had only three basic FAQ.

It’s pretty obvious that Ralph Lauren wanted to experiment and learn with little cost and effort. I can see the rationale clearly, but I would bet that low risk will result in low reward in terms of learning. What if the brand spent more thought on how it could uniquely use the mobile space to ad value in the world of athletic fashion. One idea: Let users send a photo of themselves, and a real fashion expert at RL send back personalized wardrobe suggestions. It’s more complicated, sure, but I think you can see it as much more meaningful.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, for new technology to be effective in marketing, we must work hard to make meaning from Day 1. Advertising is not needed for mobile and other new devices to be successful. We’ve got to earn consumers’ attention with tools and content that truly add value.

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Posted in Technology, mobile | 1 Comment »

The Pope Is Texting – UPDATED

Monday, July 21st, 2008

When your brand has a message that people want to hear, don’t you owe it to your consumers to give them that information in whatever form they desire? The Pope gets it; does your brand?

That’s right. According to Reuters, the Pope is texting Catholic followers during the World Youth Day event in Sydney, Australia. He will send daily messages of “inspiration and hope” on each of the six days of the event. The first text ran as follows:

Young friend, God and his people expect much from u because u have within you the Father’s supreme gift: the Spirit of Jesus – BXVI”

The Catholic Church has more followers (5 million) than any other religion in Australia, and its leaders are looking for new ways to connect with its younger generations of followers. There will be more than 200,000 young Catholics at this event, so texting is a natural fit. According to Bishop Anthony Fisher: “We wanted to make WYD08 a unique experience by using new ways to connect with today’s tech-savvy youth.”

I think this experiment in texting could go further for the Catholic Church. First, in much of the developing world, texting has become the low-cost communication method of choice. In the Philippines, for example, there is a high number of Catholics (71 million, the fourth-most in the world), and a high number of mobile phone users (more than 46 million). Second, texting is a very personal form of communication – in this case allowing many followers to feel the power of direct messages from the Pope.

I think it is interesting to see the Catholic Church experiment with new ways to bring its meaningful message to the masses, especially because it is a faith that has kept close to its traditions for some time. And if a 2,000-year-old institution can experiment in new media, why can’t your brand?

UPDATE: Now Obama is getting into the text game with the news that he will announce his VP running mate via text.  Interesting way for his campaign to encourage people to join the texting communication list.

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Posted in Technology | 1 Comment »