Google Takes to TV to Promote Browser
SAN FRANCISCO — Google is once again taking up arms in the browser wars, in the belief that people who use its Chrome Web browser will be more likely to keep using Google search. — The company is taking the battle to mainstream America …
Context & Ripple Effects
Chrome has come a long way from its first public test in September 2008, when Google's browser was still an experiment; by late 2010 the company was framing the browser as the platform that does it all. The move announced on May 4, 2011 completes that arc: Google is buying television time to push Chrome at mainstream American audiences who never read a tech blog.
The strategic logic stated in the report is retention, not reach — Google believes Chrome users are more likely to keep using Google search, so every browser install protects its core business. There is also a TV irony worth noting: Google first came to television in 2007 as an ad-technology vendor, tracking audiences for other companies' spots, and now it returns as a buyer promoting its own software.
First-order effects
- Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox suddenly face a rival willing to spend broadcast-scale money on browser brand awareness, a channel neither has treated as a primary battlefield.
- Google's own product cadence supports the campaign: Chrome Canary reaching OS X and a planned Chrome 16 release before year-end give the marketing push shipping software behind it.
Second-order effects
- Rivals are pushed toward spending on consumer marketing and default-placement deals to defend share, shifting the browser contest from feature checklists to distribution economics.
- TV networks gain a large new technology advertiser just as Google's separate Google TV effort — criticized after a weak first season, with a new release promised this year — keeps its name on both sides of the screen.
Third-order effects
- If browser choice is increasingly decided by advertising rather than bundled defaults or technical merit, the browser becomes a paid customer-acquisition channel for search engines — raising the cost of entry and favoring players with ad budgets over smaller independents.
- A sustained TV push would also signal that Google treats consumer software brands the way it treats its search product, blurring the line between a web services company and a mass-market software marketer.
The trend: Browser competition is shifting from engineering-led differentiation to marketing-led distribution, with search providers treating the browser as the gateway they must buy their way into.