Google comes to us

You can have a completely different attitude to this, but the fact remains that Google has activated its promotion campaign in Russia.

It all started in early June when, one fine morning, users found banners with Google search ads on a number of popular portals. It must be said that this suddenness in itself produced a not weak PR effect - Runet briskly spoke of the fact that “Google is coming!”.

After a month-long break, Google re-launched display ads, but now banners advertised Gmail, a Google email service. It is noteworthy that the cartoons of Andrei Bilzho, with the legendary Petrovich, were used for banners. This gave the advertising campaign a touch of provocation and informality.
')
This was followed by a widely announced presentation of the updated Google Maps service, as well as the Q & A service (similar to Answers on mail.ru).

Google’s cooperation with Alexander Druze in the framework of the “Questions and Answers” ​​project, in which Alexander Abramovich is the main expert, can be called a very good move. For a large part of Russians, Alexander Druz personifies intellectuality and this, of course, will allow attracting additional users to the new service. Many will ask questions in the hope that the Great and Terrible himself will answer them (I must disappoint them - having looked at the site, I did not find a single answer to the master).

Let me remind you that the talk that Google is about to launch a full-scale promotional campaign and then all competitors will have difficulty - they have been going on for a long time. At the same time, there are entire professional communities that are waiting for Google almost as a messiah (a vivid example is SEO, which has been saving Yandex for years). However, to say for sure: whether the long-awaited marketing battle between the two titans, Yandex and Google, is now quite difficult. And even if it takes place - it is unlikely that someone will vouch for the result.

On the one hand, Google has an asset:


one of the world's greatest brands;
experience of promotion in the markets of various countries;
abundance of unique services;
bag with money behind your back.
On the other hand, Yandex has:

initial focus on Russian realities;
solid team of professionals working together over the years;
well-established commercial network;
long experience in market leadership (for many, the words Internet and Yandex are synonyms).

Despite the fact that according to LiveInternet, Google is inferior in terms of the number of users to Rambler, it is Google that is called the most serious competitor of Yandex. The share of Rambler is gradually decreasing, while the share of Google, on the contrary, is growing. At the same time, the share of Yandex fluctuates slightly. Thus, it can be said that so far Google’s offensive has occurred mainly at the expense of the Rambler audience, which practically does not conduct any more or less clear positioning of itself in the market, as a result of which it has very shaky positions.

If Google launches a large-scale advertising campaign, the alignment of forces in the Russian search engine market may change significantly, but it all depends on what strategy each of the participants will follow.

The best advertising strategy for Google would be to emphasize its position as the leader of search (and not only) technology in the world. A very effective course would be the use of motives in advertising, with the so-called Google mission - “Creating an international information space”. Thus, each Google user will consider himself contributing to the construction of this space.

On the other hand, Yandex would make sense to maximize the use of the theme “10 years together.” At the same time, to emphasize that Yandex is not standing still, but is constantly expanding, creating new services, developing a portal, and conducting various off-line events. Also, it is necessary to clearly establish an association in the consciousness of users: “Runet - Yandex”, emphasize that Yandex is a Russian development, originally created for the Russian mentality, taking into account Russian morphology.

As for the Rambler strategy: since its main audience is middle-aged people who have been faithful to this search engine for more than a year, the best strategy will be to position themselves as an “adult” search engine designed for business people. This will be a successful strategy of “adjustment” from competitors, which will make it possible to become practically a monopolist in its niche.

Anyway, I think that there are a lot of interesting things ahead of us. I hope that in the end we will win - the users.

Marketing Blog