Ch. 15 - Retailing

Google is a search engine, not a store, but it is increasingly inching into e-commerce with products like its comparison-shopping service, Google Shopping. Shoppers are savvier than ever. They use social recommendations, web searches and smartphone apps to make informed purchase decisions. So how can a retailer stand out and get a shopper’s attention? Retailers can now add promotions to their product listings on Google Shopping to make them stand out. In addition, they can distribute their promotions on other Google properties such as Google Maps for Android and the Google Offers app, and attract shoppers to their store. In a few simple steps retailers can create a promotions list, map it to the right products in Google Shopping and upload to Google Merchant Center.  Our system supports user specific redemption codes and associated reporting, enabling retailers to measure the performance of each promotion. Google has recently changed Google Shopping to require e-commerce companies to pay to be included in shopping results, so product listings are now ads. Inclusion used to be free. Although some retailers agree, and say the move could even help their sales, others are panicking. Some say they will not pay for listings or will include fewer products, which could shrink the selection shoppers see on Google. The move is a way for Google to make more money from retailers, some of its most lucrative advertisers, but it also needs to improve product listings to keep valuable customers from going to Amazon. “Google and Amazon both have the same end goal, to be the destination that people go to to do their product searches, and Amazon’s winning that battle,” said Michael Griffin, founder and chief technology officer of Adlucent, which does search marketing for online retailers and formerly managed Amazon’s paid search.

Ch. 6 - Consumer Decision Making

Consumer behavior is an important consideration when constructing a marketing plan. Businesses that cannot understand how a consumer's mind works will have a more challenging time trying to figure out how to target a campaign that will attract or catch attention. Can the internet search giant distribute market and support hardware? The search giant will sell a phone subsidized by a wireless carrier, probably T-Mobile. The Google-branded Nexus One smartphone is set to launch early January. It's a radical departure for an internet advertising company built on search terms and text ads to enter the low-margin, cut-throat hardware business. Of course this increases the rivalry with apple, as they already compete on browsers and desktop and mobile operating systems. Google’s product will have a long way to go before it can reach the iphone, and of course Google has none of Apple's chops in marketing, retail and customer support, but, analysts and partners say, don't put it past Google to draw on its rich arsenal of brand power and sheer will to disrupt and experiment. Analysts say if Google was serious about selling phones in mass quantities to consumers directly, it would have to quickly ramp up its consumer-marketing efforts.

Ch. 5 - Developing a Global Vision

Google's chief executive stated in Berlin that the company plans to extend its Web television service, Google TV, 1from US viewers to global consumers starting in 2011. Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest television manufacturer, said that it will make sets run by Google’s TV android software to compete with Sony and Apple in the market for televisions that can access the internet, movies, shows, and games online. In May 2000, Google launched the first foreign language versions starting with 10 European languages. By September of the same year, it expanded to include Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
It opened its first international office in Tokyo in August 2001, and in October 2004, it opened an office in Dublin, Ireland, It's workers were multilingual Googlers that serviced its customers across multiple time zones and languages. Google bought android in 2005, even though they didn't announce that they were going to join the mobile device market. The advantage for Google of developing an operating system, rather than a Google phone, was that many manufacturers could adopt the platform. Motorola, Samsung and LG were among the first brands to use the Android platform. As of Sept 2012 Google owns 81.8% of the search engine market share. Followed by bing with 8.37%.

Ch. 4 - The Marketing Environment

There are three key elements to the marketing environment which are the micro-environment, the macro-environment, and internal environment.These key elements are important because, marketers build internal and external relationships. Marketers need to assess and evaluate the internal business/corporate environment and external environment, which is subdivided in to micro and macro.Google is a Geocentric company. Google managers are recruited from all over the world and that power is centralized in the United States. It has been designed to serve Google customers across multiple time zones and languages spanning Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Google's target markets are established business advertisers. They designed a searchable database and matrix to favor big business and established merchants with brand recognition. They've developed viral marketing and have attracted the attention of all sources of media for promotions both paid and free. This has provided them with a top dollar, revenue earning advertising medium yet disguised as an Internet search engine to the web surfer. They continue to develop more Internet advertising opportunities and technology to increase revenues from advertisers.

Ch. 3 - Ethics & Social Responsibility

Running a socially responsible and ethical company is often the best thing for a business. By having a company that stands for ethical values, you show people integrity and empathy. More and more people are choosing to buy products from companies that are socially responsible rather than buying products from a company that damages the environment. More and more smart consumers are switching to socially responsible products. Majority of people would rather work for a company that stands for something benefiting humanity as a whole. Employees in ethical business are sometimes willing to work harder, and with more passion for the same pay or even less. Businesses that are ethical and socially responsible often find that other businesses come to partner with them before they come to partner with other less socially responsible companies.

The Google founders have a desire to promote the welfare of others, so they gave $1 billion in seed money with the objective of tackling poverty, global warming, and diseases. The Google company makes the world a better place: It is environmentally friendly, it has significant minority and women representation at all levels, and it is doing very well financially. Google donated $1,000,000 to Haiti. They also offer free advertising to nonprofits through their Google Grants Program. They also have an extensive list of free or low-cost services for nonprofits and universities through their “Technology-Driven Philanthropy” campaigns. An ethical violation that Google does is that they not only gather vast amounts of personal data, they aspires to global domination - and that's creepy, writes John Naughton. .

Ch. 1 - Overview of Marketing (Brief History and Mission Statement)

Google began in 1996 as a project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. While studying in Stanford University California, Larry and Sergey came up with a plan to make a search engine that ranked websites according to the number of websites that linked to that site, and ultimately came up with the Google we have today. The domain Google.com was registered in September 14 1997 and Google corporation was a formed a year later in September 1998. Google is a billion dollar organization that exists not only to satisfy it's searchers but it has changed the world allowing us to process several hundred million search queries a day, from every country around the world. I am committed to follow the Google company for the next fifteen weeks, and i am also committed to providing an informal yet professional statement each week after reading and applying the elements from chapters of the book.