<p>The armchair noobs go:</p> <ul> <li> "Ohhh Google's scared by the competition!"</li> <li> "Oh noes, they're advertising now! They're scared of Bing!"</li> <li> "They're going to die!"</li> </ul> <p><strong>Google's not scared; advertising to the world in 60 seconds just let it pound its competitors further.</strong></p> <p>Google is still gaining market share, capturing a leading <strong>67%</strong> of search queries (compared to Bing's 10%), and with a Dream Team of search experts (and several billions of dollars in free cash flow at its disposal to invest <strong>further </strong>in search), Google won't lose its leading position anytime soon.</p> <h2>Why Did Google Advertise?</h2> <p>When you see an ad, you like the company behind the ad a little more; that's called the exposure effect; it's a reason why:</p> <ul> <li> We'd rather hang out with <strong>Friend A </strong>than Friend B because we see Friend A more than Friend B.</li> <li> We prefer living at <strong>our homes </strong>more than living anywhere else because we're more familiar with our homes.</li> <li>We're more interested in <strong>Lady Gaga </strong>than Selena Gomez because gossip magazines expose Lady Gaga more to us.</li> </ul> <p>We're more fond of <strong>GEICO </strong>than any other insurer because we recall its ads more than any other insurer's; every GEICO ad strengthens our relationship with GEICO.</p> <ul> <li> Likewise, every exposure/contact/referral to Google strengthens our relationship with Google.</li> </ul> <h2>Google Spends Big on Marketing</h2> <p>Peeps who haven't read Google's 10Ks or its quarterly reports might not realize that Google has always marketed heavily, spending 70% as much of its money on sales &amp; marketing as it does on engineering (and has more people in sales and marketing than any other division, including engineering).</p> <ul> <li><strong>If you're a nobody</strong>, advertising lets you capture an audience; <strong>if you're a market leader </strong>like Google, Budweiser, or Coca Cola, advertising lets you reinforce your position, keeping competitors from chipping into your lead.</li> </ul> <p><strong>A company that avoids sales and marketing won't reach its full potential</strong>; a company that avoids sales and marketing will kill itself when heavily-marketed competitors reach out and steal its target customers.</p> <p>Yes, a great product that can market itself is supremely ideal; but, <strong>coupling a great product that can market itself with great advertising/marketing/sales will attract the masses</strong>.</p> <p>Building great, multinational, billion-dollar companies takes advertising; likewise, building sustainable companies on a smaller scale takes advertising.</p> <h2>Advertising is good.</h2> 2010-02-08T06:12:13-08:00 true 937 why-did-google-advertise-at-the-super-bowl 0 2010-02-08T10:00:58-08:00