http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-turns-online-privacy-into-public-service-crusade-with-multi-week-marketing-campaign/2012/01/17/gIQAq6xW4P_story.html

A UK Google Good to Know Advertising Campaign

Personally, I find the advertising campaign appealing to customers.

Google has successfully achieved Step 3 of the Marketing Process which is to design a marketing strategy. It has considered which customers it will serve by gathering personal information to allow it to segment customers and identify its target market. As Google’s revenues are highly dependent on its advertising, I think this would help enhance its value proposition by reassuring consumers that it will protect their image and respect their privacy.

The Good to Know print ads are visually appealing, concise and reinforce that the website should be visited to ensure that customers fully understand their rights. Its message is clear, albeit a bit wordy. An area of improvement would be to translate the long lines of text into a catchy in-your-face slogan with a smaller area of text that neatly sums up what the campaign is about.

In terms of satisfying the 4 Ps, I think that Google has room for improvement under Promotion. It deals with the public relations aspect as it rebrands itself as a trustworthy company. However, it has to work on creating a stronger personal connection with customers. Instead of just tailoring objects to their customers’ specific tastes, it should work on place – channels of how the advertisement will be conveyed, whether it will be a variety of methods such as online or physical posters. Online would be more appropriate as Google is an online search engine.

My sole pet peeve with this campaign is that Google must go above and beyond this campaign to be fully credible, as it has suffered from previous online privacy lapses.