A couple of interesting things about this article. First, Google spends $2B a year on marketing. Second, they are already the 10th most valuable brand in the world….

Google recently stopped by the ASU campus on their “App To School” bus tour. It’s neat to see how more and more of my fellow Sun Devils are starting to use Google Apps to manage their schoolwork and school life.

I think this has been a brilliant move on the part of Google. It seems to me that habits formed in college will likely stick with a person for a large portion of their lives. Google is creating tens of thousands of Gmail, Calendar, Sites, and Docs users every semester. Focusing on getting the word out to the college crowd will prove to be one of the most important things they can do for the future of the company. (Oh, and college kids don’t read the newspaper or watch television commercials. Lots of them don’t even watch TV now that Hulu and other Internet TV sites are mainstream.)

As far as resorting to traditional “brand” advertising, I don’t see this as providing any long-term benefit for Google. Brin and and Page are wise to be so cautious. Advertising has to go beyond making people laugh and making people feel good about how wonderful your company is. Advertising has to invoke action on the part of the customer.

If they can focus on keeping their existing customers happy and continually improving their existing products and services, I don’t think they will ever have to worry about taking out a double-trucker in the New York Times or dropping millions of dollars on a Super Bowl® commercial.

In the US and Outside the US specially in the Developing markets like India, Pakistan Middle East etc.

Unless you’re specifically endorsing a new product within your company, it does nothing. everyone already knows who you are. the only useful advertising is if they somehow don’t know what you do (new menu item, new software suite, new drink flavor, new social app)

quote:
“we have seen a lot of companies in the VERTICAL DOMAIN–SEARCH ENGINES, ad networks, social media. But the integrated user experience I envisioned–Web 3.0 = 4C+P+VS (content, commerce, community and context plus personalization plus vertical search)–still eludes.”

“personalization, my cornerstone concept for Web 3.0, languishes.”

http://www.forb...03vertical.html

I feel they need to focus on offering personalized niche multichannel strategic vertical location based offerings. “It is very hard if not impossible” for them to do because it does not fit in with there algorspam and adspam system they are founded on.

Billboard advertising is nonsense for a company like goog.
http://www.kill...locator-network
AdvertismentLocator.com

http://kaiyzen.com/?p=220

And outside of apple/hp/dell Google is one of the top product placement sponsors amongst tech companies.

As @byron mentioned, PR is really their primary marketing method. When they are in full swing we can hardly go 72 hrs without some announcement regarding the Big G. Does the $10 Million Android contest and $30 xprize sponsorship come out of their marketing budget?.., Probably not, but it is meeting the same purpose as taking out a billboard for Goog411 just targeted at a different audience.

There is no “bad media”, there are bad marketing mixes.

I think is a very clever strategy.

Most people don’t know what a mobile OS is, much less that Google has created one. That information has to be disseminated quickly, while the phone is still current, and to everyone, not just those who thoroughly research their phone choices. You have to throw it in people’s faces, and traditional advertising is just the medium for that.

There is a lot Google does and not everyone knows how they can use Google.

Cheers – Eric

It’s => it is
Its => possessive for it.

For example:
yet it’s offline advertising budget is estimated => yet it is offline budget is estimated
it’s free 411 service => it is free 411 service.