Logo Design Blog

In the corporate corridor of power and publicity, the hottest news is: Google Inc. has dethroned Microsoft Corp. from its coveted seat of the premiere brand of the world. Be it the Reuters news source or CNet covering the writing of the wall is same everywhere—Google has made it to the first place so far as effective branding strategy is concerned.

Let’s see how Google outsmarted in its race for the first place in the brand recognition business. Google is ahead of such established names as General Electric Co. (No. 2); Coca-Cola Co.(No. 4); Wal-Mart Stores (No. 7); and IBM (No. 9).

A year ago, Google was ranked the 7th largest brand in the world. This jump to the top position within a year time is thus extremely significant. Especially when it is a well known fact that Google uses relatively little advertising, rather relying more on the traditional tool of word-of-mouth promotion. So what is the secret behind Google’s becoming a trusted household name all round the globe!

One key factor of brand recognition does relate to the corporate responsibility performed by the company. Another secret behind its success is the way it helped capture and serve the customers in the newly emerging markets like Brazil and India.

The market research firm Millward Brown, (Millward Brown is a unit of WPP Group and the findings were published in cooperation with the Financial Times) which is responsible for this ranking reveals, the result was based on publicly available financial data along with primary research, including interviews with a million consumers worldwide.

The study aside, we all can feel the huge popularity of Google as a brand when we see even a child can recognize the colorful Google logo or when we synonymously use the word internet surfing with “Google”.

The name and the unique logo have much role to play in this huge rand recognition of Google. Especially when we observe Microsoft’s slip from the first place to third despite huge publicity surrounding Windows Vista operating system, then we are forced to think of certain X factor that puts this brand recognition mechanism into play.

As observes Eileen Campbell, the global chief executive of Millward Brown “a blend of good business leadership, responsible financial management and powerful marketing … can be leveraged to create and grow corporate wealth.” These are all true of Google. In addition to that Google’s tramp card for branding success is hidden in its simplicity. After all, branding is all about evoking the right emotion with regard to a particular product or service.

And Google knows it best how to garner this emotion in the simplest way. In addition to their business focus, research and financial decision making, it is an ubiquitous Google logo that makes its presence felt everywhere, every moment—in the cyber world or in the real world. Those simple cluster of letters—with color or without color— are easy to identify and enough to give you the feel, you have come to the right place to find out the thing you want.

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