The new synonym to search-‘Google’

I have recently observed lot of people using ‘google’ alternately for search in common parlance. Isn’t it ridiculous how a market leader has become a generic name to the industry at large? Other such examples are ‘Xerox’ being used for photo-stat, ‘Surf’ for washing powder (especially in rural areas), ‘Dalda’ for vanaspati ghee, ‘Luna for moped and ‘VIP’ for travel bags. But, in all the above examples the brands were used as a noun whereas ‘google’ is being widely used as a verb. Strange isn’t it?

Although being a late entrant in the search engine market, Google has a market share of 91% much larger than its competitors,  Yahoo and Bing.

Source: Wikipedia

The statistics by iProspect suggest that 89.4% of consumers in India prefer Google as their most used search engine followed by Yahoo (7.5%) and Bing (2.4%).

Such is the popularity of Google that Amitabh Bachchan recently gave a funny dialogue,  ‘I will hit you so hard even Google will not be able to find you’. On similar lines, Aby Baby’s recent flick ‘Dum Maro Dum’ has a dumdar dialogue- “Barbosa ka pata hai…baki sab ke liye Google  hai”.

But, the question is whether the high popularity of Google will become a road block in its brand recognition. As more and more people are using Google as a category name, it may face the grave problem of losing its highly valued brand name.

Let us look at the possible options which Google can undertake to avoid such a scenario.

• Diversification: Google which started initially, in 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as a core web search engine has diversified itself into a number of internet based services and products. To name a few are Gmail as its email service, Orkut, and more recently, Google Buzz on the social media platform, Google Chrome in the web browser category, Picasa for photo organization and editing software and Google Talk for instant messaging. It has also entered the smartphone OS market with Android. Now, the going should be to better promote the diversified product vis-a-vis the search one.
• Creating a sub-brand: Another possible option is to create a sub-brand for search while keeping Google as the umbrella brand.
• Re-branding: A new face to the original brand can also be a solution. But, re-branding just does not mean a logo-redesign, or altering the stationery and corporate colors. Re-branding entails a whole bundle of intangible items that are needed to be considered as well. This will entail a huge cost and at the same time may lead to lose brand loyal customers. So, the pros and cons of this option should be studied well before implementing.
• Brand recognition campaigns: Campaigns promoting Google’s product differentiation over its competitors or its cutting edge technological tools can be another way of establishing the brand ‘Google’.

 To some of you, this discussion might appear far-fetched, futuristic and irrelevant. To this I would say, some of the most powerful brands which are reduced to category now must have had similar confidence about their perpetuity and they are history. On similar lines, I think ‘Google’ brand faces real risk of degenerating into a category name.