Google's Brand Management: Strategies and Challenges

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Brand Management
Google LLC
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Contents
INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................3
TASK 1.............................................................................................................................4
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................4
STRATEGY FOR STRENGTHENING THE BRAND EQUITY......................................6
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................12
TASK 2...........................................................................................................................13
BRAND PORTFOLIO................................................................................................. 13
BRAND HIERARCHY.................................................................................................16
ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIES USED BY THE GOOGLE FOR MANAGING BRAND
EQUITY WITHIN THEIR PORTFOLIO.......................................................................17
TASK 3...........................................................................................................................18
STRENGTHS OF GOOGLE HOME THAT CAN BE LEVERAGED............................19
WEAKNESSES OF GOOGLE HOME THAT NEEDS ATTENTION...........................20
SUGGESTIONS......................................................................................................... 21
PARTNERSHIP AND COLLABORATIONS................................................................21
TASK 4...........................................................................................................................22
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................... 24
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REFERENCES...............................................................................................................25
INTRODUCTION
This report is going to cover the different aspects of Brand Management. The starting
sections of the report explain what a Brand is and what is Brand Equity. Then the
strategies for creating a successful brand are explained. The further sections explain
the brand equity model that can help a company to increase its brand equity. Then the
next section covers the topics like brand revitalization, brand extension and brand
reinforcement. Then the report explains information on the brand portfolio of a chosen
organization. The organization chosen in this report is Google LLC. The report clearly
explains the brand portfolio of Google and then the brand hierarchy based on that brand
portfolio. The further parts of the report cover the analysis of the strategies that the
company uses for maintaining its brand equity. Then there is an elegant explanation of
the strengths of a brand of a Google i.e. Google Home which can help to leverage that
Brand. Also, there are the weaknesses of the Brand which can affect its brand equity;
based on those suggestions and partnership agreements are discussed. The last
sections of the report cover the discussion of managing and maintaining the different
factors that can affect the brand of a company.
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TASK 1
Title - Building and Managing Brand Over Time
INTRODUCTION
A Brand can be defined as a unique and different sign, symbol, design, words, or
maybe all the things combined that is used with a product and helps in establishing an
image of that product in the customer’s mindset which helps to differentiate that product
from the other similar products of the competitor companies (Batra et al., 2012). Later
these brands get associated with the company and make the customer loyal to the
company and the customer chooses that company’s product over the other competitors.
On the other hand, the value that the company generates from that brand is referred to
as Brand Equity. The more positive high image that the brand has, the more will be its
value from the customer point of view. The value can include more ROI, transferring of
the brand to other products, boosting stock prices (Aaker, 2010).
ROLE OF THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT IN CREATING BRAND EQUITY
Marketing plays a very important role in creating brand equity. The key importance is:
 Defining and managing a brand
 Brand Awareness
 Developing internal communications
 Analyzing the competition
STAGES OF CREATING A SUCCESSFUL BRAND
The steps or the stages for creating a successful brand can be understood by Keller’s
Customer-Based Brand Equity Model:
Keller’s Brand Equity Model – This model is based on the principle “For creating a
good Brand the company should shape and alter how the consumer thinks and feels
about the company’s product” (Keller et al., 2011). The company has to build positive
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experiences and feelings, opinions and beliefs about the product. The stages for
creating a strong brand are:
Figure 1 - Keller's Brand Equity Model
Source – Remy, 2013
1. Brand Identity (Who are we) – This includes letting the customer know what the
company and product do and what are the things that it does differently from
others. In this stage, awareness is created among the customers.
2. Brand Meaning (What are we) – This includes two factors “imagery” and
“performance”. This step includes letting the customer know how the product
meets the customer needs and how it satisfies the requirements at a
psychological level.
3. Brand Response (Feelings for the brand) – This includes two basic things i.e.
"judgments" and "feelings". The customer analyses judge the product based on
its quality, price, performance, etc. and develops feelings for it.
4. Resonance – This stage is tough to reach and is reached when the customer
feels a deep psychological relation with the brand or the company. This includes
things like loyalty, attachment, etc. in the customer’s mind (Keller et al., 2011).
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STRATEGY FOR STRENGTHENING THE BRAND EQUITY
There are a lot of different strategies that were used by Google for strengthening brand
equity. The main strategy that is used widely is Product Mix.
PRODUCT MIX
Product mix refers to the different variety and the range of the products that the
company provides. Product mix helps in creating a range of products either related to
each other or may be different. The wide range and varieties of products help Google to
attract new customer and strengthen the brand value (Mayer et al., 2016). The product
mix can be broadly divided into 4 parts i.e.
1. Breadth – The Breadth of the company's products links to the different product
line that the company holds. In other words how much diverse the products are.
For example, the few of the product line of Google are:
Figure 2 – Google’s Product Line
Source – Author’s Work, 2019
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Google
Web Standalone
Applications
Communication
& publishing
mobile
Products

2. Length – The length in product mix refers to the totally different items of the
company in each product line. For example, Google has products like a search
engine, maps, ride finder, analytics, etc. in the Web Product line.
Figure 3 - Google's Product Length
Source – Author’s Work
3. Depth – The depth of the products includes the varieties of each product like
Search has different variants i.e. Google official web search, image search,
music search, Google lens, etc.
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Google
Web
Search
Maps
Ride Finder
Standalone
Applications
AdWords
Editor
Gmail
Notifier
Picasa
Communication &
publishing
3D
Warehouse
Blogger
Calendar
Docs
Mobile
Products
Gmail
Android OS
Maps
Mobile

Figure 4 - Google's Product Depth
Source - Author’s Work
4. Consistency – Consistency means the relation between the different product
lines of the company that the company manages and operates. In other words, it
relates to the different aspects of the different products lines and that the
company manages to keep the product related to the brand and maintain the
identity of the brand (Mayer et al., 2016).
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Google
Web
Search
Web Search
Image
Search
Sound
Search
Maps Ride Finder
Standalone
Applications
AdWords
Editor
Gmail
Notifier
Picasa
Communication &
publishing
3D
Warehouse
Blogger
Calendar
Docs
Mobile
Products
Gmail
Android OS
Maps
Mobile

BRAND EXTENSION
Brand extension refers to the launching of the new products in the different product lines
of the company in order to maintain brand awareness and increase it among the
existing and the new customers. The new products need not be from the same product
line (Spiggle et al., 2012). To understand the brand extension clearly an example of
Google’s recently launched products can be taken. Google has launched Google Home
Hub and Google Pixel Slate recently:
Figure 5 – Google Pixel Slate
Source – GPS, 2019
Figure 6 - Google Home Hub
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Source – GHH, 2019
BRAND REINFORCEMENT (Romaniuk and Nenycz-Thiel, 2013)
Brand in the simplest terms is maintaining the brand equity in the market by keeping the
brand alive among the customers (both new and existing). Conducting brand
reinforcement includes two major goals:
1. Brand Awareness – What the brand is and what are the products under the
brand?
2. Brand Image – What the brand does differently from the other competitors?
The brand reinforcement includes various steps like advertisements, sponsorships,
promotions, exhibitions, etc. Examples are:
Figure 7 - Google Phone Advertisements
Source – GPA, 2019
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Figure 8 - Google Pixel 2 XL Advertisement
Source – GPX, 2019
BRAND REVITALIZATION
Brand Revitalization is applied to a product of the brand to when it reaches the end of
the product life cycle and begins to withdraw from the market. This approach tries to
bring that matured product back to the market and make it revive among the customers
(Dev and Keller, 2014). This generally includes little alteration in the original product like
the look, brand logo, slogan, slightly new features, etc. so that it affects the mindset of
the customer in a positive manner.
Example:
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Figure 9 - Google Pixel 3 Revitalization
Source -
Figure 10 - Google Search Engine Revitalization
Source – GL, 2015
CONCLUSION
Branding helps a company in a different manner. Branding can be used as a marketing
tool which can help the company to increase the sales of the product and adding value
to the company. Marketing Department can use Branding as a great tool for establishing
a positive image of the product in the customer's mindset and maintaining the loyalty for
the company. Branding helps in clear delivery of the message to the customer and let
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