Marketing is about identifying and meeting human and social needs.

One of the shortest good definitions of marketing is “meeting needs

profitably.” When Google recognized that people needed to more effectively and efficiently access information on the Internet, it created a
powerful search engine that organized and prioritized queries. When IKEA noticed that people wanted good furnishings at substantially
lower prices, it created knockdown furniture. These two firms demonstrated marketing savvy and turned a private or social need into a
profitable business opportunity.

There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of
marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should
result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available.

When Nintendo designed its Wii game system, when Apple launched its iPad tablet computer, and when Toyota introduced its Prius
hybrid automobile, these manufacturers were swamped with orders because they had designed the right product, based on careful
marketing homework about consumers, competition, and all the external factors that affect cost and demand.

Marketers market 10 main types of entities: goods, services, events, experiences, persons, places, properties, organizations, information,
and ideas

GOODS: Physical goods constitute the bulk of most countries’ production and marketing efforts. Each year, U.S. companies market
billions of fresh, canned, bagged, and frozen food products and millions of cars, refrigerators, televisions, machines, and other mainstays
of a modern economy.

SERVICES As economies advance, a growing proportion of their activities focuses on the production of services. The U.S. economy
today produces a services-to-goods mix of roughly two-thirds to one-third.11 Services include the work of airlines, hotels, car rental firms,
barbers and beauticians, maintenance and repair people, and accountants, bankers, lawyers, engineers, doctors, software programmers,
and management consultants. Many market offerings mix goods and services, such as a fast-food meal.

EVENTS Marketers promote time-based events, such as major trade shows, artistic performances, and company anniversaries. Global
sporting events such as the Olympics and the World Cup are promoted aggressively to companies and fans. Local events include craft
fairs, bookstore readings, and farmer’s markets.

EXPERIENCES By orchestrating several services and goods, a firm can create, stage, and market experiences. Walt Disney World’s
Magic Kingdom lets customers visit a fairy kingdom, a pirate ship, or a haunted house. Customized experiences include a week at a
baseball camp with retired baseball greats, a four-day rock and roll fantasy camp, and a climb up Mount Everest.

Marketers are skilled at stimulating demand for their products, but that’s a limited view of what they do. They also seek to influence the
level, timing, and composition of demand to meet the organization’s objectives. Eight demand states are possible:

1. Negative demand—Consumers dislike the product and may even pay to avoid it.
2. Nonexistent demand—Consumers may be unaware of or uninterested in the product.
3. Latent demand—Consumers may share a strong need that cannot be satisfied by an existing product.
4. Declining demand—Consumers begin to buy the product less frequently or not at all.
5. Irregular demand—Consumer purchases vary on a seasonal, monthly, weekly, daily, or even hourly basis.
6. Full demand—Consumers are adequately buying all products put into the marketplace.
7. Overfull demand—More consumers would like to buy the product than can be satisfied.
8. Unwholesome demand—Consumers may be attracted to products that have undesirable social consequences.

Manufacturers go to resource markets (raw material markets, labor markets, money markets), buy resources and turn them into goods
and services, and sell finished products to intermediaries, who sell them to consumers. Consumers sell their labor and receive money with
which they pay for goods and services. The government collects tax revenues to buy goods from resource, manufacturer, and
intermediary markets and uses these goods and services to provide public services. Each nation’s economy, and the global economy,
consists of interacting sets of markets linked through exchange processes.
The below figure shows how sellers and buyers are connected by four flows. Sellers send goods and services and communications such
as ads and direct mail to the market; in return they receive money and information such as customer attitudes and sales data. The inner
loop shows an exchange of money for goods and services; the outer loop shows an exchange of information.

1. Stated needs (The customer wants an inexpensive car.)

2. Real needs (The customer wants a car whose operating cost, not initial price, is low.)
3. Unstated needs (The customer expects good service from the dealer.)
4. Delight needs (The customer would like the dealer to include an onboard GPS system.)
5. Secret needs (The customer wants friends to see him or her as a savvy consumer.)
6. Consumer Markets Companies selling mass consumer goods and services such as juices, cosmetics, athletic shoes, and air
travel establish a strong brand image by developing a superior product or service, ensuring its availability, and backing it with
engaging communications and reliable performance.
7. Business Markets Companies selling business goods and services often face well-informed professional buyers skilled at
evaluating competitive offerings. Advertising and Web sites can play a role, but the sales force, the price, and the seller’s
reputation may play a greater one.
8. Global Markets Companies in the global marketplace navigate cultural, language, legal, and political differences while deciding
which countries to enter, how to enter each (as exporter, licenser, joint venture partner, contract manufacturer, or solo
manufacturer), how to adapt product and service features to each country, how to set prices, and how to communicate in
different cultures.
9. Nonprofit and Governmental Markets Companies selling to nonprofit organizations with limited purchasing power such as
churches, universities, charitable organizations, and government agencies need to price carefully. Much government
purchasing requires bids; buyers often focus on practical solutions and favor the lowest bid, other things equal.16

CHIPOTLE One of the fastest-growing restaurant chains over the last decade, Chipotle is committed to fresh food. The company supports
family farms and sources sustainable ingredients from local growers who behave responsibly toward animals and the environment. It has
over 1,600 stores and over 1.7 million social media fans–yet spends next to nothing on traditional paid media. Instead Chipotle engages
customers through Facebook, Twitter, and other social media via its grassroots “Food With Integrity” digital strategy which puts the focus
on what it sells and where it comes from. As CMO Mark Crumpacker notes, “Typically, fast-food marketing is a game of trying to obscure
the truth. The more people know about most fast-food companies, the less likely they’d want to be a customer.” YouTube videos with
country legend Willie Nelson and indie rocker Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs musically made Chipotle’s case against processed
foods and the industrialization of family farms.
Volvo develops its cars for the buyer to whom safety is a major concern, positioning them as the safest a customer can buy. Porsche
targets buyers who seek pleasure and excitement in driving and want to make a statement about their wheels.

As Figure 1.3 shows, the supply chain for coffee may start with Ethiopian farmers who plant, tend, and pick the coffee beans and sell their
harvest. If sold through a Fair Trade cooperative, the coffee is washed, dried, and packaged for shipment by an Alternative Trading
Organization (ATO) that pays a minimum of $1.26 a pound. The ATO transports the coffee to the developed world where it can sell it
directly or via retail channels.

PINTEREST One of the fastest-growing social media sites ever–its surpassed 10 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in January 2012
and doubled that just four months later–Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool that lets users collect and share images of projects or
products on digital scrapbooks or “pinboards.” Especially popular with women planning weddings, saving recipes, and designing kitchen
upgrades, Pinterest has driven more traffic to websites in a month than Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined. Part of its
appeal is its unique customizable grid of images. Pinterest’s sweet spot is that users are often in a shopping mindset; one study showed
almost 70% of online purchasers who found a product via Pinterest went on to buy, compared to 40% for Facebook. Brands from Dell and
Mercedes-Benz to Peanut Butter & Co. and Zombie SAK are integrating the site into their social media strategies. Nevertheless, Pinterest
is still exploring how to best monetize its business venture.

P&G uses the latest Web-based tools in all 80 countries where it sells products: ubiquitous high-speed networking, data visualization, and
high-speed analysis of multiple information streams. In 40 locations worldwide, a massive business sphere can display real-time market
share, profits, and prices by country, region, brand, and product. Tide laundry detergent has a dedicated “news desk” that monitors social
media chatter and joins in when relevant. When Tide was used to clean up a nasty fuel spill in a NASCAR race, the brand ran social
media ads with real news footage within 72 hours. P&G looks at a wide range of technology applications. One pilot study showed that field
salespeople increased revenue 1.5 percent merely by using iPads to show store customers the layouts of different floor displays.

Globalization changes innovation and product development as companies take ideas and lessons from one country and apply them to
another. After years of little success with its premium ultrasound scanners in the Chinese market, GE successfully developed a portable,
ultra-low-cost version that addressed the country’s unique market needs. Later, it began to successfully sell the product throughout the
developed world for use in ambulances and operating rooms where existing models were too big.

Globalization changes innovation and product development as companies take ideas and lessons from one country and apply them to
another. After years of little success with its premium ultrasound scanners in the Chinese market, GE successfully developed a portable,
ultra-low-cost version that addressed the country’s unique market needs. Later, it began to successfully sell the product throughout the
developed world for use in ambulances and operating rooms where existing models were too big.

Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartayaya, and Iwan Setiawan believe today’s customers want marketers to treat them as whole human beings
and acknowledge that their needs extend beyond pure consumerism. Successful marketing is thus distinguished by its human or
emotional element. A third wave of thinking, values-driven and heralded as “Marketing 3.0,” has moved us beyond the product-centric and
consumer-centric models of the past, these authors say. Its three central trends are increased consumer participation and collaborative
marketing, globalization, and and the rise of a creative society.

Empowerment is not just about technology, though. Consumers are willing to move to another brand if they think they are not being
treated right or do not like what they are seeing, as Progressive Insurance found out.
PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE Kate Fisher, a Progressive customer, was killed by an underinsured driver who ran a red light. Her family
felt they had to sue the driver for negligence to prompt Progressive to make up what the driver could not pay. Matt Fisher, Kate’s brother,
was furious when Progressive actively participated in the negligent driver’s legal defense. His Tumblr post, “My Sister Paid Progressive
Insurance to Defend Her Killer in Court,” was picked up by media outlets and sparked public outrage on Progressive’s Facebook and
Twitter pages. More than 1,000 customers reported dropping Progressive, and many more said they would not do business with the
company. Although Progressive felt it had defensible business reasons for its actions, critics were enraged by its awkward responses, like:
“We fully investigated this claim and relevant background and feel we properly handled the claim within our contractual obligations.” After
a few tumultuous days, Progressive reportedly settled with the Fishers for tens of thousands of dollars more than the $76,000 they had
sought.

HEIGHTENED COMPETITION

While globalization has created intense competition among domestic and foreign brands, the rise of private labels and mega-brands and a
trend toward deregulation and privatization have also increased competition.

Private labels. Brand manufacturers are further buffeted by powerful retailers that market their own store brands, increasingly
indistinguishable from any other type of brand.

Mega-brands. Many strong brands have become mega-brands and extended into related product categories, including new opportunities
at the intersection of two or more industries. Computing, telecommunications, and consumer electronics are converging, with Apple and
Samsung releasing a stream of state-of-the-art devices from MP3 players to LCD TVs to fully loaded smart phones.

Deregulation. Many countries have deregulated industries to create greater competition and growth opportunities. In the United States,
laws restricting financial services, telecommunications, and electric utilities have all been loosened in the spirit of greater competition.

Privatization. Many countries have converted public companies to private ownership and management to increase their efficiency. The
telecommunications industry has seen much privatization in countries such as Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, and Japan.53

Coca-Cola reinforces its message of happiness with special promotional “Hug Me” vending machines which dispense free product.Coca-
Cola is fundamentally changing the way it does marketing, primarily by adding a strong digital component to its traditional marketing tools.
The new model is based on moving consumers from impressions to expressions to conversations to transactions.Coca-Cola defines
consumer expressions as any level of engagement with brand content: a comment, “like,” or share on Facebook, a Tweet, or an uploaded
photo or video. Coca-Cola strives to put strongly sharable pieces of communications online that will generate impressions but also lead to
expressions from consumers who join or extend the communication storyline and ultimately buy the product.These communications focus
on the core themes of “happiness” and “optimism” that define the brand’s positioning. One successful application is the video of the “Hug
Me” vending machine in Singapore that dispensed cans of Coke when people put their arms around it and hugged it. Within in a week, the
video generated 112 million impressions.Coca-Cola actively experiments, allocating 70 percent of its budget to activities it knows will
work, 20 percent to improving those activities, and 10 percent to experimentation. The company accepts that experiments can fail but
believes in taking chances to learn and develop better solutions. Even in its traditional advertising and promotion, it looks for innovation.

For instance, Coca-Cola places much importance on cultural leadership and causes that benefit others. The mission of its Artic Home
project is to protect the habitat of polar bears—who have starred in animated form in its holiday ads for years. Committing $3 million to the
World Wildlife Fund, Coca-Cola drew attention to the project by turning its traditional red cans white.

Understanding the 4 As of Marketing

According to Jagdish Sheth and Rajendra Sisodia, poor management as a consequence of not knowing what drives consumers is behind
the majority of marketing failures. The authors make the case that consumer knowledge is a much more reliable route to success. Their
customer-centric marketing management framework emphasizes what they believe are the most important consumer values—
acceptability, affordability, accessibility, and awareness—which they dub the four As.

Acceptability:Acceptability is the extent to which a firm’s total product offering exceeds customer expectations. The authors assert that
Acceptability is the dominant component in the framework and that design, in turn, is at the root of acceptability. Functional aspects of
design can be boosted by, for instance, enhancing the core benefit or increasing reliability of the product; psychological acceptability can
be improved with changes to brand image, packing and design, and positioning.

Affordability:Affordability is the extent to which customers in the target market are able and willing to pay the product’s price. It has two
dimensions: economic (ability to pay) and psychological (willingness to pay). Acceptability combined with affordability determines the
product’s value proposition. When Peachtree Software lowered the price of its accounting software from $5000 to $199 and started
charging for customer support, sales demand increased enormously.
Accessibility:Accessibility, the extent to which customers are able to readily acquire the product, has two dimensions: availability and
convenience. Successful companies develop innovative ways to deliver both, as online shoe retailer Zappos does with excellent customer
service and return policies and its tracking of up-to-the-minute information about warehouse stock, brands, and styles.

Awareness: Awareness is the extent to which customers are informed regarding the product’s characteristics, persuaded to try it, and
reminded to repurchase. It has two dimensions: brand awareness and product knowledge. Sheth and Sisodia say awareness is ripest for
improvement because most companies are either ineffectual or inefficient at developing it. For instance, properly done advertising can be
incredibly powerful, but word-of-mouth marketing and co-marketing can more effectively reach potential customers.

Sheth and Sisodia base the 4 As framework on the four distinctive roles a consumer plays in the marketplace—seeker, buyer, payer, and
user. A fifth consumer role—evangelizer—captures the fact that consumers often recommend products to others and are increasingly
critical with the advent of the Internet and social media platforms.

Note that we can easily relate the 4 As to the traditional 4 Ps. Marketers set the product (which mainly influences acceptability), the price
(which mainly influences affordability), the place (which mainly influences accessibility), and promotion (which mainly influences
awareness).

Marketing Management Tasks

Figure 1.7 summarizes the three major market forces, two key market outcomes, and four fundamental pillars of holistic marketing that
help to capture the new marketing realities. With these concepts in place, we can identify a specific set of tasks that make up successful
marketing management and marketing leadership. We’ll use the following situation to illustrate these tasks in the context of the plan of the
book. (The “Marketing Memo: Marketers’ Frequently Asked Questions” is a good checklist for the questions marketing managers ask, all
of which we examine in this book.) | Fig. 1.7 |

The New Marketing Realities

Zeus Inc. (name disguised) operates in several industries, including chemicals, cameras, and film. The company is organized into SBUs.
Corporate management is considering what to do with its Atlas camera division, which produces a range of professional quality 35mm and
consumer-friendly digital cameras. Although Zeus has a sizable share and is producing revenue, the 35mm market is rapidly declining at
an accelerating rate. In the much faster-growing digital camera segment, Zeus faces strong competition and has been slow to gain sales.
Zeus’s corporate management wants Atlas’s marketing group to produce a strong turnaround plan for the division.

DEVELOPING MARKETING STRATEGIES AND PLANS

The first task facing Atlas is to identify its potential long-run opportunities, given its market experience and core competencies (see
Chapter 2). Atlas can design its cameras with better features. It can make a line of digital video cameras, or it can use its core
competency in optics to design a line of binoculars and telescopes. Whichever direction it chooses, it must develop concrete marketing
plans that specify the marketing strategy and tactics going forward.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Marketing Excellence

>> Nike

Nike hit the ground running in 1962. Originally known as Blue Ribbon Sports, the company focused on providing high-quality running
shoes designed for athletes by athletes. Founder Philip Knight believed high-tech shoes for runners could be manufactured at competitive
prices if imported from abroad. Nike’s commitment to designing innovative footwear for serious athletes helped build a cult following
among U.S. consumers.

Nike believed in a “pyramid of influence” where the preferences of a small percentage of top athletes influenced the product and brand
choices of others. Nike’s marketing campaigns have always featured accomplished athletes. For example, runner Steve Prefontaine, the
company’s first spokesperson, had an irreverent attitude that matched Nike’s spirit.

In 1985, Nike signed up then-rookie guard Michael Jordan as a spokesperson. Jordan was still an up-and-comer, but he personified
superior performance. Nike’s bet paid off—the Air Jordan line of basketball shoes flew off the shelves and revenues hit more than $100
million in the first year alone. As one reporter stated, “Few marketers have so reliably been able to identify and sign athletes who
transcend their sports to such great effect.”

In 1988, Nike aired the first ads in its $20 million “Just Do It” ad campaign. The campaign, which ultimately featured 12 TV spots in all,
subtly challenged a generation of athletic enthusiasts to chase their goals. It was a natural manifestation of Nike’s attitude of self-
empowerment through sports.

As Nike began expanding overseas, the company learned that its U.S.-style ads were seen as too aggressive in Europe, Asia, and South
America. Nike realized it had to “authenticate” its brand in other countries, so it focused on soccer (called football outside the United
States) and became active as a sponsor of youth leagues, local clubs, and national teams. However, for Nike to build authenticity among
the soccer audience, consumers had to see professional athletes using its product, especially athletes who won.

Nike’s big break came in 1994 when the Brazilian team (the only national team for which Nike had any real sponsorship) won the World
Cup. That victory transformed Nike’s international image from a sneaker company into a brand that represented emotion, allegiance, and
identification. Nike’s new alliance with soccer helped propel the brand’s growth internationally. In 2003, overseas revenues surpassed
U.S. revenues for the first time, and in 2007, Nike acquired Umbro, a British maker of soccer-related footwear, apparel, and equipment.
The acquisition made Nike the sole supplier to more than 100 professional soccer teams around the world and boosted Nike’s
international presence and authenticity in soccer. The company sold Umbro in 2012 for $225 million.

In recent years, Nike’s international efforts have been focused on emerging markets. During the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Nike
honed in on China and developed an aggressive marketing strategy that countered Adidas’s sponsorship of the Olympic Games. Nike
received special permission from the International Olympic Committee to run Nike ads featuring Olympic athletes during the games. In
addition, Nike sponsored several teams and athletes, including most of the Chinese teams. This aggressive sponsorship strategy helped
ignite sales in the Asian region by 15 percent.

In addition to expanding overseas, Nike has successfully expanded its brand into many sports and athletic categories, including footwear,
apparel, and equipment. Nike continues to partner with high-profile and influential athletes, coaches, teams, and leagues to build
credibility in these categories. For example, Nike aligned with tennis stars Maria Sharapova, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal to push its
line of tennis clothing and gear. Some called the famous 2008 Wimbledon match between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal—both
dressed in swooshes from head to toe—a five-hour Nike commercial valued at $10.6 million.

To promote its line of basketball shoes and apparel, Nike has partnered with basketball superstars such as Kobe Bryant and LeBron
James. In golf, Nike’s swoosh appears on many golfers but most famously on Tiger Woods. In the years since Nike first partnered with
Woods, Nike Golf has grown into a $523 million business and literally changed the way golfers dress and play today. Tiger’s powerful
influence on the game and his Nike-emblazoned style has turned the greens at the majors into “golf’s fashion runway.”

Nike is the biggest sponsor of athletes in the world and plans to spend more than $3 billion in athletic endorsements between 2012 and
2017. The company also has a history of standing by its athletes, such as Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant, even as they struggle with
personal problems. It severed its relationship with Lance Armstrong in 2012, however, after strong evidence showed that the cyclist doped
during his time as an athlete and while competing during all Tour de Frances. Nike released a statement explaining, “Nike does not
condone the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs in any manner.” Prior to the scandal, the company had helped develop
Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG campaign to raise funds for cancer. It designed, manufactured, and sold more than 80 million yellow
LIVESTRONG bracelets, netting $500 million for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

While Nike’s athletic endorsements help inspire and reach consumers, its most recent innovations in technology have resulted in more
loyal and emotionally connected consumers. For example, Nike’s lead in the running category has grown to 60 percent market share
thanks to its revolutionary running application and community called Nike+ (plus). Nike+ allows runners to engage in the ultimate running
experience by seeing their real-time pace, distance, and route and by giving them coaching tips and online sharing capabilities. Nike
expanded Nike+ to focus on key growth areas like basketball and exercise and recently launched Nike+ Basketball, Nike+ Kinect, and
Nike+Fuelband, a bracelet/ app that tracks daily activities.

Like many companies, Nike is trying to make its company and products more eco-friendly. However, unlike many companies, it does not
promote these efforts. One brand consultant explained, “Nike has always been about winning. How is sustainability relevant to its brand?”
Nike executives agree that promoting an eco-friendly message would distract from its slick high-tech image, so efforts like recycling old
shoes into new shoes are kept quiet.

As a result of its successful expansion across geographic markets and product categories, Nike is the top athletic apparel and footwear
manufacturer in the world. In 2014, revenues exceeded $27 billion, and Nike dominated the athletic footwear market with 31 percent
market share globally and 50 percent market share in the United States. Swooshes abound on everything from wristwatches to
skateboards to swimming caps. The firm’s long-term strategy, however, is focused on running, basketball, football/soccer, men’s training,
women’s training, and action sports.

Questions
1. What are the pros, cons, and risks associated with Nike’s core marketing
strategy?
2. If you were Adidas, how would you compete with Nike?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

>> Google

In 1998, two Stanford University PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founded a search engine company and named it Google. The
name plays on the number googol—1 followed by 100 zeroes—and refers to the massive quantity of data available online that the
company helps users find. Google’s corporate mission is “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and
useful.” As such, the company focuses first and foremost on creating the perfect search engine. Google search works because it uses the
millions of links on other Web sites to help determine which sites offer the most valuable content. The company has become the
worldwide market leader for search engines through its strategic business focus and constant product innovation.

Google creates and distributes its products for free, which in turn has attracted a host of online advertisers seeking targeted advertising
space. About 96 percent of its revenues come from online advertising, which means that creating new advertising space is critical to the
company’s growth. Google sells advertising space on its search pages through a program called AdWords, which is linked to specific
keywords. Hundreds of thousands of companies use AdWords by buying “search ads,” little text-based boxes shown alongside relevant
search results that advertisers pay for only when users click on them. Google also runs an advertising program called AdSense, which
allows any Web site to display targeted Google ads relevant to the content of its site. Web site publishers earn money every time their
visitors click on these ads.

In addition to offering prime online real estate for advertisers, Google adds value by providing tools so businesses can better target their
ads and understand the effectiveness of their marketing. Google Analytics, for example, is free to Google’s advertisers and provides a
custom report detailing how Internet users found the site, what ads they saw and/or clicked on, how they behaved on the site, and how
much traffic was generated.

With its ability to deploy data that enable up-to-the-minute improvements in a Web marketing program, Google supports a style of
marketing in which the advertising resources and budget can be constantly monitored and optimized. Google calls this approach
“marketing asset management,” implying that advertising should be managed like assets in a portfolio depending on the market
conditions. Rather than following a marketing plan developed months in advance, companies use the real-time data collected on their
campaigns to optimize the campaign’s effectiveness and be more responsive to the market.

Since its launch, Google has expanded far beyond its search capabilities with numerous other products, applications, and tools that
benefit both consumers and businesses. The goal behind each product was to help users find information they need and to help them get
things done better, faster, and easier than before. Today, Google’s wide range of products and services fall into the following categories:
Web (Web Search, iGoogle, Google Chrome), Mobile (Mobile, Search for Mobile, Maps for Mobile), Media (Picasa, Google Play,
Youtube.com, which Google acquired in 2006 for $1.65 billion), Geo (Earth, Maps), Home & Office (Docs, Gmail, Calendar), Social
(Google+, Blogger), Specialized Search (Patents, Finance, Scholarly Papers), and Innovation.
As the world becomes more mobile, Google is betting big in the mobile category. In 2008, Google launched Android, a mobile operating
system that went head to head with Apple’s iPhone. The biggest differentiation between the two was that Android was free, open sourced,
and backed by a multimillion-dollar investment. That meant Google wanted its partners to help build and design Android over the years.
The investment paid off, and by 2010, Android became the number-one mobile operating system in the market.

As Google expanded into mobile technology, it quickly became the leader in mobile advertising with 75 percent market share for search
ads and approximately 50 percent market share for all mobile ads. In 2012, Google entered the mobile device category when it purchased
Motorola and launched the Nexus 7, a sleek tablet that competed directly with the iPad and Kindle. As Google looks toward the future, the
company wants to offer the ultimate mobile solution—Google mobile devices along with mobile services so users can use all Google all
the time.

Google’s ultimate goal is to reach as many people as possible on the Web—whether by PC or by mobile devices. The more users on the
Web, the more advertising Google can sell. Google’s new products not only accomplish this goal but also make the Web a more
personalized experience.

Google has enjoyed great success as a company and a brand in its short lifetime. From the beginning, it has strived to be one of the
“good guys” in the corporate world, supporting a touchy-feely work environment, strong ethics, and a famous founding credo: “Don’t be
evil.” Google currently holds a 67 percent market share for core searches in the United States, significantly greater than Microsoft’s 17
percent and Yahoo!’s 15 percent market shares. Globally, Google holds a more dominant lead, with 85 percent market share over
Yahoo!’s 8 percent and Microsoft’s 3 percent. Google’s revenues topped $59 billion in 2013, and the company was ranked the second
most powerful brand in the world with a brand value of $107 billion. In addition, Google’s $400 billion market capitalization in 2014 edged
out companies like Walmart and Microsoft to become the second most valuable company in the world.

Questions
1. With a portfolio as diverse as Google’s, what are the company’s core brand
values?
2. What’s next for Google? Is the company right to put so much focus on Mobile?