Google has launched its first above the line advertising campaign today. The campaign, which will run for one month, is using the strap line ‘Gone Google’ and has began in around London making use newspapers and magazines as well as digital displays at busy stations including Paddington and Victoria.
The ads are aimed at promoting their range of Google App products for business such as Google docs. Google want businesses to start suing their range of products over its competitors namely Microsoft. The campaign has already been running in the states for sometime however Google have now decided to take it global and using London is certainly a shrewd move.
It would appear that Google are upping the ante somewhat in an effort to overthrow Microsoft’s stranglehold on business products and it coincidently comes at a few days before the much anticipated Windows 7 is released for general retail on Oct 22nd. According to Tom Oliveri, marketing director for Google’s enterprise division, the campaign has nothing to do with Windows 7 and was always intended to go global.
I must say I do find this battle between Microsoft and Google interesting and it would seem that both want what the others have. It will be interesting to see who comes out on top however I feel that it may still be a bit early for Google on this one.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
I don’t know much about this campaign but, looking at the apps Google are offering at the moment, this seems quite simplistic in comparison to other Microsoft applications.
I’m sure this campaign is contributing in part, but, in my opinion, if Google want to appeal to businesses (and schools) they really need to work on repositioning themselves as service/product providers, rather than a search engine with a few beta apps.
The landing page for the campaign (you link to in your original post), is very, VERY basic. I haven’t seen any of the supporting advertising yet (is this only focused in London?) but I hope it is a bit more informative than the site. Not what I expected from an industry leading tech company.
One concern which springs to mind immediately when I think of Google, is the data security. Google have been renowned for screening emails in order to provide targeted advertising. I would assume this wouldnt be the case with the business products? I know I wont be signing up to anything from Google in the near future.