08/09/2015 Does the launch of Google ‘Alphabet’ have any relevance for Brand marketing?
It will have been pretty difficult to have not heard about Google’s recently announced creation of ‘Alphabet’, its company-within-a-company that removes its research-based businesses like Nest and its Robotics/Drone divisions away from their core platforms of Youtube, Android and its apps. Certainly Larry Page et al won’t have dropped their mojitos by the poolside when Google’s market cap jumped an impressive $40 Billion in July, fuelled by impressive performance in Q2’s increasingly mobile ad-driven results.
This in fact is why this is such a smart move by Google – why do they need to continue to associate risk and research with the core fundamental proposition that has made Google the $200B+ company it is ? By keeping tried, tested and (mostly) highly profitable products in one stable whilst retaining the globally recognised Google brand name, Google ringfence both their profitable businesses and their brand reputation. Pushing their future bets into another stable will dis-associate Google from failure should any fail, as some surely will. It is also a neat corporate swerve because it gives clarity to Wall Street about just what kind of a company, now company-ies, Google is.
So, will ‘Alphabet’ have any impact for brand advertisers or content providers across its vast digital offer? None really…there have been no amazing new products or platforms announced. In fact the real news for brands is in the Q2 results, not in the launch of ‘Alphabet’. There we see how Google is beginning to gain some ascendancy in the mobile advertising space, claw some of the high ground back from Facebook, and show that it has more up its sleeve should the inevitable decline of Search revenues start some time soon. The halo effect of mobile revenues keeps going with Google and Facebook both vastly out-performing the teetering heights that US stocks have climbed to, and even managing to cling on (relatively speaking) whilst Chinese jitters sent global markets tumbling recently.
Let’s hope to see more product innovation from Google in the near future; it will be good for brands, and good for them – that’s why we should expect something soon.