What's in a brand? Google and Apple's Differing Approaches to Marketing

Google and Apple have been dominating the tech news lately.  Apple has been burning through units and soaring to unprecedented heights, while Google has been nothing short of a rumor mill, with a steady stream of acquisitions, announcements, and leaks.  There’s certainly a great deal of buzz in the industry about Google, but this buzz seems limited to the tech-savvy, and has failed to breach the gap to the regular consumer. Google is poised to create a revolution in the world of computing, yet the level of consumer interest cannot match the levels created by Apple. Is Google playing possum for a large Q4 release? Or are they shunning traditional marketing channels?

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Google understands the power of advertising. Google’s advertising programs are their foundation, and the driving force behind their growth. And the advertisers have found great success using Adwords, from the addition marketing budgets, to the tangible, trackable, customizable, and in-depth results it produces. Yet one would find it strange to think that much like Disco Stu, Google doesn’t advertise. 

Indeed, why should they? Everyone knows Google. They’re a verb. The lack of advertising hasn’t hurt them one bit, but when venturing into the consumer realm, the game would change, one would think. But first we must ask ourselves… What is Google really selling? All of their offerings are free. There are rumors of a Google Music marketplace opening, but the content they are selling isn’t their own. Same would be true of any centralized App marketplace. But is this smart? If you are hoping to convince retailers how great your platform is, it would help to convince their customers of that fact. What sells users on the iPhone is not the hardware, but the easy, intuitive, and integrated software, which has made led app developers to a fountain of wealth.

Google has instead left the marketing to the people using their platform -  the content providers, hardware manufacturers, and service providers.  But the end result is a fragmented marketing experience. Most luddites don’t understand the difference between the Android OS and Verizon’s “Droid” phone.  This confusion, coupled with the number of devices running Android, means you will never see these iPhone-like sales figures from Android phones.  With just one product using the iOS, Apple ensures huge draws and massive amounts of media buzz surrounding the upgrades and launches. It’s hard to ever imagine there being a line for the launch of a new Droid or EVO phone.

A Failure in Branding

Let’s face it… Google does offer an amazing set of tools for advertisers, web developers, journalists, students, whomever.  It’s practically the only way we interact with the content on the web. Yet it’s hideous looking.  From the logo to the layout to the icons they’re now using on their search sidebar, there is nothing about Google’s design that is attractive.  Google Adwords has become much improved of late, and is fantastically convenient and easy to use, but the design has zero personality.  I find it difficult to complain about Adwords… with all of this involved content, their simple structure makes it easy to use, and easy to explain to clients.

When it comes to their more consumer-oriented services, they have forsaken design in favor of simplicity. They use a great deal of A/B testing, focus groups, and user data to define their design, but the result ultimately plays to the lowest common denominator.  As the complexity of their services continues to expand, their renowned simplicity is slowly disappearing. The poorly designed sidebar is just the start. Not only must the user click to show all options, but the lack of design on the “More” link doesn’t garner enough attention. This aesthetic has carried over to YouTube, with the hard to spot double-arrow buttons. There’s also a lack of centralization of the links on the page, which makes them more difficult to find. Why is the Embed code located next to the Flag button, not the share links? And nowhere near the subscribe link? This is poor design, and fails to engage the user and make them interact.

The Huge Potential of Customized User Experience

While this poor UX is disturbing, YouTube hints at a potentially huge revenue stream: Google Themes. We’ve all seen this in it’s nascence with branded video pages, and, of course, with the digital disaster MySpace became ones users began messing with their page designs. It’s a very dangerous path to tread, but if done well, can be greatly successful.  The use of pre-packaged themes developed by professionals would be an excellent solution – one that offers customization and personalization within limits.

Once Google launches it’s OS, we can expect to see a consolidation of our experience on Google, YouTube, Picasa, Google Me, and all of Google’s offering, straight to our desktop computing. Imagine being a designer, and having the ability to design themes for an entire OS, and selling those themes online. You could reskin all of Google’s offerings, and sell a complete UX for $99.  Considering the Chrome OS and all of Google’s offerings are free, users probably wouldn’t mind spending a few clams to spruce up their experience.  If Google has taken this under consideration with the development of Chrome OS, the potential is massive. It would certainly be easy enough with their open-source take on development.

Of course this is all speculation, but it would make sense. We must wonder how the launch of Chrome OS will be received, and if it will generate the buzz that Apple does with it’s product launches. For if it fails the smell test, or fails to generate wide-spread consumer interest and adoption, there will be less incentive for retailers, designers and developers to bother adopting the platform. Let’s just hope they treat the launch with the same fanfare and ado Apple does.