Google’s services (IMO) tend to do one, or both of two thing;

* Provide an existing service, but in a far superior way (Google Maps)
* Do something people didn’t realise they needed (search for the name of a business, and automatically get the store marked on a map)

I’m not Google’s biggest fan, but they seem to do things on an almost daily basis which make my online ‘life’ better. And that’s as powerful as any marketing.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=mapquest%2C+google+maps

I do think though that Google, even when they’re not doing traditional consumer marketing, are doing more than harvesting demand. What they do so well, which I think you could almost define as marketing, is creating products & services which people don’t even realise they need, and then promoting them through the SERPs. Google Maps is a perfect example of this.

Google did underwrite Nova in 2005/6. Not sure why they didn’t continue.

Their underwriting spot is still online

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/funders/google.html

I also, in the fall of 2005, remember hearing Google ads on NPR.

So maybe Google hasn’t done a *lot* of brand advertising of its own properties. But it is certainly nothing new.. they’ve done a little bit of it for years now. That barrier was broken a long time ago.

I’m guessing they’re trying to figure out a direction to go once people figure out that their search engine doesn’t actually do very much (I can find ebay.com and amazon.com fine now, thank you very much ).

Perhaps a satellite image from several years ago of a place I plan to visit might be important to me someday — and I guess that is why they put the banner up at the stadium (I guess they figure they might be able to find some mom & pop shop willing to give them money to advertise their candy store so I will be able to find it while surfing on my portable device).

It really amazes me — if I am ahead of my time, these guys are “way out there“.

nmw

I can totally believe Google won’t admit it. They do some great work, but everybody there drank the kool-aid. Sometimes it seems like they speak only in hyperbole.

However I think that for Google there is probably a third path beyond the dichotomy between harvesting brand demand and building it. The reason that Google has been so good at harvesting is that they have built a great deal of goodwill based on years of offering (free) value. In this context, harvesting has been easy. As the company looks to expand its consumer proposition, however, the ways in which it uses the potential energy stored up in this goodwill will be critical. Old models — such as scoreboard ads in ballparks — will almost certainly erode rather than build the power of the brand.

As someone pointed out above… If they’re getting into transit route maps… put it on busses, cabs or something far more creative than I’m coming up with here.

These are wicked smart people. They ought to call our buddies at Crispin Porter. Now THOSE folks will knock it out of the park. (Subservient Chicken, Burger King…)

I understand how they might wrestle with scaling the new stuff… analytics, maps, app engine, on and on. Just like with search, they’ll figure it out one line at a time.