You can’t buy a Google, so can you even call it a brand?

Google might not be a brand to you, but as an IT professional it’s no diffrent to me than microsoft or apple. You can’t buy “microsoft” – you buy windows or office.

like this you might not be able to buy “google” but you can buy a google home – as well as on premises search and google apps for your domain.

this comes across as a whinge from someone who has no idea about how the digital ecconomy works

It’s becoming apparent that articles on the Net have hit peak stupid.

IMHO your argument has a serious and fundamental flaw: your definition of a ‘brand’.

‘Brand’ defines the relationship between potential customers (usually people) and potential providers (usually but not always companies).

Given the strength of the relationship between people and Google (Microsoft Bing, anyone?), I’d argue Google deserves its place at number one.

“…but that anyone in marketing ever thought Google was a brand”

Can’t possibly be serious?

What a shocker of an op-ed.

Here’s a list of Google Products to the hapless chap who wrote this – https://www.google.com.au/about/products/ Many of these are products are healthy revenue earners. There’s also a number of businesses that have their entire organisation on Google Apps, who once used Microsoft Office.

These ideas are so outdated it scares me. Get UP, Channel Nine, and the Olympics are not a brand but Intel is; even though you make an active choice for the aforementioned and at best a passive choice for the latter?

The lack of understanding of how consumers behave demonstrated in the article is poor reflection on our industry.

It is great to question how brands are valued but I’d love to see Mark’s empirical results on how brand “Love” has ever translated to a positive ROI.

I bought my Nexus and Pixel Google phones (which came with a Google VR Headset) from the Google store. I buy Music, TV, Movies, Apps through Google. I have a Google Chromebook laptop. I have a Google Chromecast to get Netflix and other streaming services on my old bedroom TV. I might get a Google Home one day.
I pay for Google Drive cloud storage.

Research? You should have tried Google!

Oh dear, this one deserves a #facepalm. People may not hand over their ‘cold hard cash’ to use Google, but there is a value exchange and benefits.

Now screen says ‘they’re not here to make wallpaper’ but they certainly write it…

You can’t buy a google, but you can invest in it by buying shares. You can’t hand over cash in a transaction to obtain a Google product, but you can obtain a Google product through a transaction in exchange for your time, attention and action (so it’s still an investment).

If Google isn’t a brand then any free software is not a brand. I just don’t see how that makes sense.

Sorry but this is so silly. You can’t buy Google??? 1000’s of people buy google adwords everyday. And they pay a lot for it. The fact that it’s business model is B2B doesn’t stop it being a brand.

A ‘Brand’ is the outward manifest representation of a known and understood relationship between entities. The keyword here is ‘representation’ – Google it (such irony!)

As an individual, you may know what a ‘brand’ ‘represents’ – or not know what it represents – similarly you may ‘trust’ that the representation is accurate, or you do not trust the representation as accurate.

In all scenarios there is a ‘brand’ – where you both know and trust a brand – then by extension, it is a ‘valuable’ brand to you.

There is absolutely no scenario where the ‘Brand’ of Google is not both known & trusted by hundreds of millions of people around the world. So Google absolutely should hold a rank in the top 5 most valuable Brands.

What is more interesting, is that it has been toppled by Amazon. How and why that happened would be a better conversation.

Suspect that Google has incurred a decline in the trust metric of the valuation assessment – because it is unlikely that Amazon has quite the same share of mind as Google but very likely a notably higher trust metric.

suggest this reporter school-up on some 101 brand marketing before writing click-bait nonsense

oh wait.. that was probably the point (click-bait controversy)

This article made me facepalm.

Mumbrella has taken a decline publishing this article

Huh?
So if a company’s products or services are free to use (which most of Google’s consumer-facing services are – search, Chrome, gmail, calendar, etc etc), it’s not a brand? Really?

People are loyal to Google. I don’t use any other search engine, I download Chrome whenever I get a new computer….

Of course if someone comes along and does these things better, they may lose their share, but that applies to any brand (even the ones you pay for…)

Well this piece is certainly garnering some engagement! In my opinion, Google is a brand and yes, as mentioned in this article, you can buy “a Google” in its suite of products both physical, software and in ads. Google is set to make over $70billion in ad revenue alone this year. It’s a brand. Perhaps the definition of a brand in one’s piece needs to be re-imagined for 2018 and beyond.

Thanks for all the feedback. I think it’s a debate worth having because, in a world dominated by a few corporate monopolies bigger than countries, it’s easy to be distracted by dizzying market caps.

I’m well aware of Google’s impressive and growing list of products and services, but that’s kind of the point. It’s almost as if they’re commoditised: they’re either free, the default, or else, like Pixel, far from number one in their respective categories.

If the AdWord cash cow funding everything else could dry up overnight (in Larry Page’s words: “competition is one click away”) and if it takes several months to sell as many phones as your competitor sells every day, then one really has to question whether that is the marque of a true brand, how desired it really is and what value the name is really adding.

Kit Kat is not one chocolate bar away from being usurped as the perfect break; VW is not one vehicle launch, nor even a public disgrace, away from being the leading car brand; Virgin and Nike imbue (almost) everything they touch with an instantly identifiable positioning, personality and justifiable premium.

Happy to be proved wrong, but with my daughter already wanting to exchange the Google Home we only just got for Christmas for the new Apple HomePod, I’m not sure how soon that will be!

Android (Google) has long outsold and been more ‘popular’ than the iOs (Apple iPhone). I can’t believe I am having to use those brackets.

The stupidest article I’ve read so far this year.