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by muzani
2398 days ago
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I'd like to see a modern approach how someone would advertise something like Google. It seems like the usual - mailing list, ads, etc still won't work. Would the word of mouth approach be as effective today? Or maybe, say, DuckDuckGo instead. |
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google at the time was riding the wave of the web itself taking off, an also it was an order of magnitude better than the alternatives, which a new google would need to be to compete.
People don't change habits for a little benefit, when the existing solution is already good. the new benefit has to be 10x better.
they might change for ideological reasons, or social reasons. if you have a world view about privacy it's easy to buy into an alternative because of that. as we've seen, most people don't care about privacy. maybe that changes in 10 years, maybe not.
But any strategy for a new product needs a target, and a story before you think about which media to use.
For example, you target teens now, who over the next 10 years will be the ones showing their parents how to use, and what to use on the next set of devices.
Or, you focus on a new niche kind of search, image search and video search and social media search and map search all came after website text (and likely were invented by other companies google acquired) maybe the next kind of search with come out of the VR world or whatever.
Either way, you start with some niche of people who will be the ones naturally motivated to spread the message. You never try to directly convince the general public of something.
That usually means starting with the group who is suffering the most pain, and wants the most urgent solution.
One thing DDGo do well on their homepage is deliver their message in long meaningful headlines... - We don’t store your personal information. Ever. - We don’t follow you around with ads. - We don’t track you in or out of private browsing mode. - Switch to DuckDuckGo and take back your privacy!
They use 4 full screens to deliver 4 headlines, that's super easy to consume, but it feels like a full message. The rest of those screens get to tell a hero's journey story visually with friendly cartoons, and a likable color palette. This feels the opposite of corporate and tech.
If you want to compete with those two, with a search engine, find another wave to ride. Another big story that people feel strongly about.
Breakthrough Advertising is one of the best ad books ever written, it explains really well how society creates these waves of feeling, the conversation of the day, the worries of the day, the hopes of the day. And how to direct that energy into your product.
Dove soap is an obvious example, a wave of emotion about the number of perfect photoshopped women selling cosmetics in magazines. Dove rode it by creating campaigns around "real women". Its a story, riding a wave, but it has sold a lot of otherwise ordinary soap. (they don't even call it dove soap anymore its a beauty cream bar lol)