Brand Growth and Strategies for Google Pixel

This document discusses the brand growth strategies for Google Pixel and how to strengthen its brand equity. It explores the roadmap for increasing market share and improving brand image by addressing the identity crisis and hardware quality issues. The document also introduces Keller's Brand Equity Model and its application to revive the brand.

Business and Brand

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Brand equity refers to premium value that a company generate through its product and
services in market. Brand equity make product and services different from other brands by
providing quality, exceptional marketing, eye catching, durability etc. with it. Different
marketing campaigns helps in growth of brand equity among people. Company with high brand
equity enjoy good market position and customers are willing to pay high price for the product on
the basis of the quality it provide. Greater brand equity helps company to make big profits from
each sale (Keller and Brexendorf, 2019). The report leads to cover details about brand strategies
by focusing over the brand growth and the roadmap for Google pixel to grow its market share by
strengthening its brand equity. Google Pixel is smart phone brand offer by Google and its parent
company is Alphabet.Inc, which was created to restructure Google and its subsidiaries.
MAIN BODY
In the given case study where Google Pixel phones wants to grow its market share which
now considere that brand is suffering from Identity crisis. The company is trying to provide all
combination of features in a single product, which have created problem in the phone, like now
users are overflowed with it and so they are try to move on from it. Ultimately it is the problem
with its brand strategy. According to Zahran. (2020), When people think of the Pixel line of
android phones from Google, there are two differentiating factors that come to mind: the camera
and the overall software experience. People with digital era and technology prioritize only
quality and loyalty of the brand towards its customers. The problem which Pixel experiencing is
regarding their hardware quality and the varied options which they provide in their phones.
There is a reason for this, Google is not well equipped to make high end phones for its users that
disappoint its customers. Thus this result into fall in demand for the brand.
According to Scott Brown, (2020) apparently the most frustrating new in the year was
that two main people from Pixel team have left, who were the product's key pioneers that is,
Marc Levoy. Levoy being the creator of Google's highly praised Pixel smartphone camera. For
pixel users and fan this could be the heart- breaking news (The only reason the pixel line isn't
android's crown jewel is google, 2020).
Talking about market share of Google Pixel in Australian market, which is very low as
people are more trusted its competitor's brand like, Apple, Samsung and Huawei etc. which
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provide excellent hardware quality in their phone and have strong brand position in the market.
According to Statscounter globalstats. (2021), mobile market share in Australia Jan, 2021 was
very low that is around 1.86% for Google user. In following graph showing the market share of
different brands of Mobile in Australia.
(Source: Mobile company Market share in Australia, 2021)
History of Google Pixel: To understand this in better way poor brand image of Google
Pixel as a smart phone in the market, it is imperative to study its history which have reviews of
users and their experience with the phone. So on a closer look it is found that Google pixel with
its every model have some sort of hardware defect in it. According to Business standard 2019,
Faulty pixel users to get up to $500 from Google, the product had a microphone so bad that
Google had to pay users of the phone up to $500 for its blunder. The article confirmed that
within a less than one year, the company had to face lawsuit by angry owners against Google's
decision of continuously selling the phones despite knowing about the issues. Other issues such
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as, Pixel 2 line had notorious screen defect with burn in on the larger XL model in 2017.
Whereas in 2018, Pixel 3 was claimed to be poor RAM management and the Pixel 4 was much
maligned for the way that it handled its higher refresh rate display and extremely poor battery
life.
Brand Growth
The term refers to growth or increase in the reputation of the company's brand in the
market and among users of the brand. Positive growth in brand have significant impact on the
company's output, market share, on customers and profitability and much more (Hbazin. 2020).
For growth in brand it requires well planned strategies with clearly defined objectives. For that
company must identify its current position, target market, accessibility and resources to meet
such objectives. As per given case study, Pixel is trying to capture market in Australia. For that
company need a roadmap to grow its brand.
Factors of Brand Measurement
It should be serious concern for company to measure its brand health. As ill brand health
due to any reason can affect brand image and to its fulfilment of objectives for the company.
Factors must be consider for brand measurement (Whitler and Regan 2019). Such as:
 Brand awareness: It refers to how people and customers are familiar with the brand. It
identify if they can recognise the brand and its offerings. This describe the customer's
behaviours.
 Brand consideration: This helps in understand whether customers is purchasing the
products when it placed with other competitive brands. This enable company to know its
position as compare to other brands in the market.
 Brand Association: It define the bond that both customer and company share through
brad. It is the emotional attachment of customer for brand. Brand association help
company to know what is working and what is not.
Above three is important factors for measuring brand and provide information to act on
them if any factor is lacking. Company can use different tools to measure the brand's health such
as; conducting survey, using social media platforms, taking customer feedback, using focus
groups and much more.
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For growth it is advised to company to create roadmap for the market share with more
varieties and features in its phone. In next section will provide a roadmap with key elements of
Google pixel. After identifying the problems and its history following key areas are drawn:
For success of the strategies brief explanation following tactics can be adopted:
1. Customer Engagement: To increase existing users company need to engage with its
customer with different programs because customer experience play the significant role
in technologies with glitch and bug free smooth experience to customers with their
handset.
For that company can arrange event or gadget shows through which people can come and
experience different handsets according to their need. That will enhance customer engagement
and user experience before actually buy them.
2. Strong Advertisement Campaign: To attract new customers company need to conduct
powerful advertisement campaign that can have strength to make image in the mind of
the viewers of the Ad.
For that Google Pixel need to do investments in campaigns where people can see them
experience their strong existence through ad.
3. Market Exploration: Google Pixel need to explore more market which will increase
their growth. With large market company can earn profits with that they can keep their
innovation up to date. Thus market and profitability for them is important to keep the
competitive edge in the technological industry.
such as in Australia as in the given case study company need to establish distribution channel
and new sells units, intense marketing plan for capture attention of the people.
4. Back- up Plan: Company must have defence or backup plan too since company is plan to
make huge investments with opening of new units for capturing market and investing in
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Road Map for Google Pixel
Vision: To make Google Pixel “Defect Free” and Increase market share in Australia.
Purpose: To be the best version of Android for everyone not any niche specific.
Goal: To build Personal Google for each and every user.
Strategy: Increase Users, Attracts new users, Open new Market, Defence Plan

different market campaign. For that company can not carry single plan, it need to have
alternative plans as well for success of the strategies.
For that, Google Pixel must have standby option either to brought back the investments or more
investment options to keep the objective in order to achieve them on long run.
From above it is clear that above strategies can help company not only in brand growth
but also able to improve the brand image as defective models among users. With increase market
share can force company to bring more innovation in the model. Because with increase in
number of user company can know their weakness and can work on them to improve them. Since
failure is part of success. The above tactics can help the strategies to be successful and so the
brand image. With improving brand image automatically can result into brand growth.
Brand Equity Model
The model was proposed by Kevin Lane Keller, a marketing professor of business
school. Therefore, the model named after him as Keller's Brand Equity Model. There are so
many factors are there which influence the strength of particular brand's product. The model
defines how to build strong brand, shaping customers and their feeling for the product. When any
brand has strong recognition customers definitely buy more them and stay loyal to brand
(Michaelidou and et. al., 2015). Also people start recommending to other people as well.
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Illustration 2: Keller's Brand equity model

At the first of the model focus on create brand salience that is, awareness. Where
company focus on brand must stand out and customers can recognise them easily. Through this
initial stage and the most crucial one, where company not just creating brand's identity but also
try to create positive perception of it.
Here, company have to answer about their identity. Such as who are customer? And what their
choice is?
In next stage, which is performance which identify and communicate what the brand is
intended to mean. Performance reflect how well is the company's product is performing.
Whether they are able to meet the customer’s expectations or not. The stage is divided into two
that is, performance and imaginary. Other than performance as mentioned, Imaginary refers to
how well they meeting the exceptions of customers at social and psychological level.
Both dimensions are serve to achieve brand association which is strong, positive and unique in
its way. These seem as important indicator for future of brand loyalty.
In the third stage of the model explain the how customer respond. It also has two
dimensions in which customer response either by making judgements or by expressing feelings.
It is assumed that customer always judge product on following four common parameters. Such
as, quality, superiority, creditability and consideration. Whereas in feeling which express the
emotional response towards brand. Some common and positive brand feelings are; warmth,
security,self- respect, care etc.
In the final stage of the model, which tell about brand resonance. At this point customer
wants their sustainable relationship with brand. Brand resonance being at the top of the brand
equity pyramid means it is the most difficult and the most desirable level to reach (Burmann,
Jost-Benz and Riley, 2009). The level further divided into four groups. That is; behaviour
loyalty, attitudinal attachment, Sense of community and active engagement.
The Keller's brand equity model can help Google Pixel to revive from its low
performance in the market. Since the product is high quality but fail to meet some expectations
of the customers. This model can help and turnaround the efforts. Before increasing market
share Pixel need address the model to identify its position in the mind of people and what
changes they need to made to be successful in order to gain growth. All the strategies only can be
successful if company is fully aware of its customers and their need and what are the essential
changes is demanding.
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CONCLUSION
After summing up all the problems and possible ways to eliminate those problems it can
be conclude that before jump in to growing brand equity pixel need to make improvements in
their product. Quality should be the ultimate focus to grow brand. On researching many
shortcomings are caught. Which need to be address using appropriate strategies. The mentioned
possible roadmap can guide the way towards it. These are some crucial points that company must
consider above anything else. Ultimately after improvements and strong strategies to capture
market can successfully achieve its objective easily. The results can be seen on long term
perspective. Therefore, Pixel need to focus its overall product to make it defect free and then
they can create strong brand equity.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Keller, K.L. and Brexendorf, T.O., 2019. Measuring brand equity. Handbuch Markenführung,
pp. 1409-1439.
Michaelidou, N., and et. al., 2015. Consumer-based brand equity measurement: lessons learned
from an international study. International Marketing Review.
Burmann, C., Jost-Benz, M. and Riley, N., 2009. Towards an identity-based brand equity
model. Journal of Business research. 62(3). pp. 390-397.
Whitler, K. and Regan, E., 2019. Brand Measurement Methods.
Online
Zahran. O., 2020. Google pixel identity crisis. [Online] Available through:<
https://medium.com/swlh/googles-pixel-identity-crisis-3a0e44e71b3b >
Statscounter globalstats. 2021. mobile vendor market share. [Online] Available through:<
https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/australia >
Faulty pixel users to get up to $500 from Google. 2019. [Online] Available through:<
https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/faulty-pixel-users-to-get-up-to-500-
from-google-119051500928_1.html >
Scott Brown.C., 2020. The only reason the pixel line isn't android's crown jewel is google.
[Online] Available through:< https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-biggest-
problem-1119218/ >
Hbazin. S., 2020. Understanding and measuring brand growth. [Online] Available through:<
https://www.business2community.com/branding/understanding-and-measuring-brand-
growth-02281822 >
Brand equity model. 2019. [Online] available through:<
https://www.12manage.com/description_keller_customer_based_brand_equity_model.ht
ml >
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