Google now the top global brand

Jonathan Bowers, April 28th 2008, 12:23PM

Google is once again the biggest brand in the world, well according to one report at least. Admittedly, the said report is from highly respected market research agency Millward Brown and it has the online search engine titan as top dog in the corporate branding stakes for the second year running.

The new Millward Brown list of top 100 brands is once again dominated by technology companies with 6 of the top 10 coming from the IT field. However, previous brand king Microsoft has fallen to third to leave Google as the undisputed brand leader. Or has it, according to an alternative list by Interbrand Google ranked only 20th in 2007.

The discrepancy seems to be down to just how rapidly the Google brand is growing. While the Interbrand 2007 list has Google in 20th place it also says the brand had grown by 44% over the previous 12 months, a figure that blows all of the other top 100 brands out of the water. It is therefore perhaps understandable that a year on Google would be the top brand worldwide.

The Millward Brown list is compiled by evaluating both tangible financials and intangible customer opinion. In terms of the tangibles, Google certainly made big waves last year. Profits were up 40% to $4.2 billion in 2007.

Meanwhile, what about the intangibles? Well ask a random person on the street to name an online search engine and chances are they will say Google. Similarly, ask them to describe the Google logo and, again, the likelihood is they can.

It certainly seems Google is king at the moment. Its impressive profits, extremely recognisable profile and market sector dominance undoubtedly makes it the Tiger Woods of brands.

Meanwhile, looking just at the UK sector, Vodafone has taken over as the top British brand and in doing so has provided a useful example that brand success and profits are not necessarily mutual. In fact, ironically Vodafone's bottom line has taken a bit of a beating lately partly because it has been pursuing an aggressive acquisition policy to expand its brand strength globally. Time will tell if boosting its brand will work for Vodafone.

Also of interest is the continued recovery of Marks & Spencer. The British retailer has had an iconic brand for a long time, however its value has fluctuated a great deal in the last few years. Happy for it, the brand is looking in good shape again as M&S is the top British retail brand and the fourth highest overall.

The recover has been multipronged. To rebuild its reputation M&S has revamped its stores, refocused on core product lines and, of course, delivered a highly successful ad campaign that reports suggest brought in £2.5 for every £1 spent. Other successful strategies included a remodelling of the company website, which resulted in a 78% increase in online Christmas sales last year. The morale of the M&S story seems to be: keep it fresh and current.

Tags: adwords, brand, google, internet, search_terms
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Yahoo too proud for Microsoft's advances

Jonathan Bowers, April 18th 2008, 4:07PM

What is it about Microsoft that it seems no one wants to play with them? The global computing giant has issued an unsolicited $43 billion offer to buy Yahoo but the online portal seems to be willing to do almost anything to avoid getting into bed with Microsoft.

The logic of the move is clear to me: by teaming up both Yahoo and Microsoft can, for the first time, realistically take on search engine leader Google. This is a strategic view that I'm sure is appreciated throughout the IT community with the exception of Yahoo's senior management it seems.

In fact Yahoo's tactics appear to be to go the opposite way completely, by teaming up with Google in a deal that can surely only strengthen the search engine king's grip on its throne. Yahoo has agreed to enter a trial of using Google AdSense, which will deliver relevant Google ads alongside Yahoo's own search results. Yahoo is also reportedly in talks to take over Time Warner's AOL internet assets. All this, it seems, to thwart Microsoft.

But why? Is it because Yahoo is fiercely independent? Or is it just fiercely opposed to being bought by Microsoft? Either way I believe that Yahoo has its sense of who is its biggest competition badly skewed.

By partnering up with Microsoft, Yahoo would have the ability to take on Google for the status of the largest online search portal worldwide (and the financial prizes that come with it). Instead, by teaming with Google and taking on its technology, Yahoo is effectively announcing that Google is better. This amounts to Google standing on the summit of Mount Internet Search Engine and then Yahoo handing it a Yahoo branded box to stand on.

Yahoo would no doubt argue that it is not just a search portal and that being number one in that regard is not the be-all and end-all. It may even add that a tie-up with Google will help drive traffic to its other portal services thus strengthening its overall standing. However, for me, it seems as though business sense has given way to good old-fashioned pride. Yahoo likes being a big fish in its own pond and it does not want to be a small fish in Microsoft's vast silicone sea!

And meanwhile, everyone else with a vested interest in the internet, from managed hosting providers to mortgage advisors , lose out. Google is already starting to throw its weight around by changing its Adword rules to glean higher profits and now Yahoo has demonstrated that it is safe to continue its anticompetitive policies.

Tags: adwords, google, internet, search, search_terms
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Developing the Internet at its core

Jonathan Bowers, April 23rd 2007, 11:50AM

One of the exciting things about working with a technology company is that you can never be 100% sure that what you are doing in terms of development will allow you to deal with all the changes occurring across the industry.

It could become easy to be very reactive - to adjust as the changes happen - which would of course be a dangerous place for any company at the cutting edge of an industry to find itself - by its nature they would no longer be cutting edge.

I'm really pleased to announce the launch of Project32, a wide reaching UKFast initiative that aims to seek out and form alliances with those in the UK who are developing new systems for server monitoring and protection. The project also researches ways to get as much out of the power available to the industry rather than looking at suggestions such as building new power stations and covers topics like Internet security and connectivity.

Lawrence Jones has been very eager to find ways to offer customers more energy efficient options without losing any performance and the R&D capital has already developed eco servers that are making this a reality.

I hope that over the coming months there will be a lot more that I can report here that places the UK at the forefront of Internet development.

Tags: development, internet
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UK firms get venture capital for web projects

Jonathan Bowers, January 23rd 2007, 1:00PM

There’s an interesting piece about UK companies attracting investment in 2006 that provides an insight into some big developments coming online this year.

Paul Fisher provides a great list of all the venture capital ploughed into European companies last year. I’ve concentrated on the UK investment and it seems to present a varied mix of sectors across 21 companies.

I had expected social networking and video on demand to play a majority part but the list provides a couple of glimpses into possible future ground breakers.

Creating communities accounts for 30 per cent of the deals with companies from Bebo through to Mind Candy (Second Life potential) receiving funding. Retail sites have also done well with 4 receiving around £20m between them – the majority going to wiggle.co.uk.

An area of Web 2.0 represented less strongly is Video and audio provision, with only Last FM and web TV site Aggregator getting the nod. It’s likely that Venture capitalists are staying out of this field because of the provisions already being networked by the big national broadcasters.

Two surprise entries in the list are ticket vending sites, specialising mainly in concert and sports ticketing. The most revealing ones for me tend to revolve around new technologies. Skinkers is a device-to-device RSS tool allowing us to receive our web information in various forms and Yuuguu connects remote workers allowing them to share collaborative efforts more rewardingly and efficiently.

Tags: growing_business, internet
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Everyone wants their profit from the web

Jonathan Bowers, August 30th 2006, 10:17AM

The UK's most prominent political bloggers have seen the future. They're centralising their content in a bid to make revenue from advertising. Not just any advertising though - advertising that their readership want to see.

This news is followed hot on the heels by an online advertising conundrum. A number of media companies are suggesting that there is a shortage of expertise in the online advertising arena and this is slowing business opportunities to capitalise on the audiences across the web, particularly on social networking sites like MySpace, Bebo and YouTube.

Does this mean that the sector is not growing as quickly as we would all like it to? Start-up Spiralfrog obviously doesn't think so. The online music outlet, launching in December, is planning to be the first to provide free and legal music downloads. It's going to fund itself, the music labels and the artists through advertising on the site.

In this circumstance 'build it and they will come' is probably a fair assessment. Who is likely to turn down free music with the added bonus of a clear conscience! However, can the net sustain itself across other markets funded purely by advertising?

I'd be interested to know other people's thoughts as I suspect ROI in online advertising will at some point become much more challenging.

Tags: advertising, internet, marketing
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