Last month, Google added another title to its bulging trophy cabinet after being voted the ‘UK’s top consumer brand’. This follows on from it being hailed as the world’s most powerful brand in April, and sees them leapfrog Microsoft as the ‘brand that people value at work and in their daily lives’. 

Google’s whirlwind love affair with the World shows how the nature of branding is changing in the 21st century, and teaches even the smallest enterprise a few tricks on winning customer loyalty.

What defines a superbrand?

The survey to find the UK’s top superbrand was conducted by the Superbrands Council (a group of marketing, advertising and media experts), who define superbrands as:

‘A superbrand has established the finest reputation in its field. It offers customers significant emotional and tangible advantages over other brands, which (consciously or subconsciously) customers want and recognise. All superbrands must represent quality, reliability and distinction.’

This definition goes a long way towards explaining why Microsoft has been usurped from its throne, and why (as discussed in my previous article) it needs to fear for its future.

Both Microsoft and Google provide products and services people use everyday. But whereas Microsoft’s reputation was won through shear domination, Google won praise because of its popularity and the perception of its superiority.

Why are Google the #1 brand?

Google’s recognition as the UK’s (and World’s) biggest brand is arguably the fastest rise of a brand in history. Barely past its tenth birthday, Google has overtaken seasoned thoroughbreds, such as the BBC, British Airways and Mercedes Benz, as a name synonymous with quality, distinction and a service that’s superior to the rest. 

To be fair, Yahoo and MSN have been fighting an uphill battle ever since their competition’s name became a verb. With around 80% of web users ‘Googling’ to find the answers to their questions, Google is now synonymous with search.

As with any successful marketing strategy, perhaps Google’s dominance is as much to do with the ‘perception’ of product superiority as it is to do with reality. 

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when Google started chomping into Yahoo and MSN’s market share. But its expansion into a plethora of high quality, free products (e.g. Google Earth, Maps, Gmail and Googledocs) is arguably the catalyst that generated its huge popularity in such a short space of time. 

Perception can be as important as your product

The best marketing talk in the world isn’t going to turn you into a superbrand if you don’t have the products to back it up with. However, the perception of superiority can be as important as the quality of your wares in making people lust for your label. 

Building the perception of superiority is an increasingly complex puzzle for marketing and advertising agencies. Because people are looking for brands that engage with their interests and passions, rather than merely bombard them with one way advertising messages. 

This changing consumer mindset is being shaped by both an ad averse culture and the fact that people now have control over what content they want to receive.

Google’s rise comes from feeding a modern consumer need

Last May, BT released their 21^st Century Life Index Report, which estimated that most Brits now spend over six hours per week surfing the web. With one in five visiting more than 20 sites a week, the TV is now being left switched off whilst people ‘Facebook’ their friends, shop and feed their thirst for knowledge. 

The spread of broadband and explosion in online content is changing the consumer mindset from that of waiting to be fed to that of feeding itself. Today’s consumer now actively devours content that offers valuable insight and helps them make smarter buying decisions. 

So what does a global superbrand’s success have to do with me?

Google’s rise as the world’s biggest brand occurs not only from providing a better product, but also the perception of being superior to their rivals. Through the provision of additional services it was able to foster a positive association to its brand and encourage people to adopt it as their search engine of choice.

Google’s success demonstrates that you have to look beyond just your core product in raising perceptions on your brand’s value. Whilst you might not have the billions to spend on giving away free internet applications on a global scale, there are many ways in which you can enhance your brand’s image. After sales support, your customer service record and content that offers value to customers can all be utilised to foster positive associations with your logo. 

When you consider that brand perceptions are being formed online more than ever, a good place to start in boosting your profile would be your website. Are you providing merely a branded message in the form of an online brochure? Or are you providing insightful, useful content to customers that enhance the quality, reliability and distinction of your brand?   

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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

So was Cuil’s launch the biggest PR disaster of all time? Judging by the barrages of criticism and negative coverage you’d certainly think so. With hindsight, comparing yourself to the world’s most popular search engine before you’ve even gone live probably wasn’t the best idea.

For anybody not in the loop, Cuil is a new search engine created by a team of ex-engineers from Google, Alta Vista, IBM and eBay. This dream team was supposed to deliver a new standard in search, and loosen Google’s tyrannical grip on the search advertising market.

Cuil was launched to the fanfare of indexing three times as many websites as Google, and ten times that of Microsoft. Whilst the tactic of using a bold claim to attract attention certainly won it exposure, it backfired when the product failed to live up to the hype.

Peddling hype will backfire

Rarely does a news story on Cuil pass without a flood of negative feedback pouring into the comments section. People are furious at having their attention diverted on a product launch that’s fallen short of expectation, with many eager to share their own experiences of Cuil’s irrelevant links compared to Google. The pasting of images from one website onto another’s search result also hasn’t gone down well, appearing like yet more cracks in the beleaguered search engine’s algorithm.

With hindsight, Cuil should have been launched with ‘Beta’ pasted all over it in big, bold letters. Then it would have had a get out clause for early hiccups, and an excuse for why it went down repeatedly on launch day.

More importantly, the Cuil team should have stayed clear of using bold claims to push their product, particularly to an internet audience who aren’t just sceptical but furious if someone tries to peddle them hype.

Why Microsoft’s future is at risk

Cuil’s attempt to break into the lucrative search market occurs on the backdrop of Google’s online dominance posing a risk to Microsoft’s long-term future. Because Microsoft’s reign as the king of office software is under threat now that online applications are on the verge of competing directly with those on your desktop.

Along with email, word processing and data storage, PC applications are starting to emigrate online, offering remote access to documents and software from any internet connection.

Google has been investing heavily in creating online applications for the last few years, with Gmail, Google Docs and Google Earth now used by millions all over the world. There can be little doubt that Google has ambitions of usurping Microsoft as the software King, and adding it to their existing title as conqueror of the search market.

Microsoft aren’t just buying Yahoo for their search traffic

Microsoft’s protracted takeover of Yahoo is as much about buying an online presence as it is about gaining its search traffic. Whilst Yahoo’s 3.45% share of the UK search market pales into insignificance compared to Google’s 87%, Yahoo remains a popular portal because of its news, finance and other services, which provide the online consumer experience Microsoft craves.

Last month, Microsoft was given another poke in the eye on the urgent need to change their business model when Google replaced them as the UK’s # 1 brand (showing just how much searching on the internet has become a part of people’s everyday lives).

So will buying Yahoo give Microsoft the muscle needed to challenge Google’s online dominance? Time will tell. But becoming a popular brand is about providing services and products that people value. It’s not something you can buy or gain with barrages of publicity, but has to be earned. Just ask Cuil.

[Here’s an insightful BBC news clip discussing in more detail the pros and cons of Microsoft buying Yahoo]

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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

Mad inventor meets internet finds peace, presents an online op art tool for your screen or to project at dances and on bands. Give it a go and see how many patterns resemble stuff projected onto the walls in the old Top of the Pops television show! Just run Opartica and click on shapes to add them to projects and you can spin them, move them, overlap them, and set colours.