Did an interview with Canadian Business magazine that hit the newstands last week (do they still have newstands?). They asked three smart people and me how to make sure your new brand offering doesn’t go up in flames like the Samsung Galaxy 7. Here’s the piece followed by an interesting observation on how Google launches brands that they didn’t include:
Here’s what they didn’t print:
I’m a big fan of Google’s forever beta approach as they say in the piece. I’ve been an early adopter of things like GMail, Google Docs and Google Photos and AdWords itself and seen how they invite you in early as a beta-tester and then make it better and better. But the ONE time when they ignored this and failed consequently was Google Glass.
The first problem is they succumbed to the same top-down pressure to ‘get this product launched!’ that makes a lot of companies rush out and create hype without proper beta-testing first. And with Sergey Brin making this his big pet project the pressure must have been immense. (His girlfriend being the marketing manager probably didn’t help either ; ) This may have made them blind to the early internal users who suggested that it shouldn’t be positioned as an everyday fashion item and more of a ‘use-it when-you-need-it’ tool. Instead they started with hype in the fickle fashionista crowd.
Then, to make matters worse, they charged journalists and a select group of geeks $1,500 to test it. Now you’ve created a group with whom any product letdown is magnified because they paid for it with a higher expectation of performance vs. the free special secret club of regular people beta-testers that they typically do with the launch of their new sub brands.
Thankfully (for my Google stock), this is a rare misstep by a great company.
For more information on how an online marketer like Google taught traditional marketers a thing or two on branding, check out our post on Online Branding: The Semi-Hidden Power of the Google Doodle.
To find about how our Brand Engineering™ approach lets you know your brand will work before you take it to market, call me at 1-855-223-8312 or email popthehood@TheMarketingGarage.ca for more information.
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