When it comes to search, Google dominates its competitors. In fact, its name is synonymous with search.
Nobody “searches” online. We “google”.

Last month, Americans conducted 18 billion online searches, and Google handled more than 65% of them. Yahoo’s search engine clocks in at 15.9% of all searches, while 14.1% were handled by Microsoft’s Bing.

Do the math. These three giants handle 95% of all U.S. search requests.

Now imagine you want to start a search engine. How would you do it?

Focus on the hole in the market. And make that your story.

Google does a lot of things right. But they don’t do everything right, for everybody. So if you want to compete with Google, you find something they don’t do well and figure out a way to do it better.

That’s what DuckDuckGo does.

Never heard of DDG?

DDG founder, Gabriel Weinberg, created a search engine that blocks content mills and sites jammed with advertising (improving the quality of results). DuckDuckGo doesn’t track search results and share them with advertisers. It doesn’t store search history or IP addresses.

This past January, DuckDuckGo got a lot of attention for a billboard in San Francisco that read: Google tracks you. We don’t.

Hit them where they are weak. Find the hole.

It’s a great brand story.

Easy to tell. Easy to understand.

But that’s not all.

DuckDuckGo does other things that customers like. All search results are displayed on a single page… just keep on scrolling. The name, logo, and site design are playful and clean. You can customize the color, fonts, alignment and other elements of DDG. And the search results are pretty darn good.

The DDG experience feels a lot like what Google was ten years ago.

DDG also does a nice job with disambiguation (they have something called semantic topic detection that helps narrow your search). Try searching for “Lincoln” and you get a box at the top of the page with several choices. Are you looking for Abraham Lincoln? Lincoln Automobiles? Lincoln, Nebraska? Novels, bands, films, or albums called Lincoln? It’s a nice feature that makes results more accurate.

Compared to Google, DuckDuckGo is tiny. Barely worth noticing.

And they’ve got a good  brand story.

Small companies disintermediate bigger competitors all the time. Google did it to Altavista, Excite, and Lycos (remember them?).

And somebody will do it to Google.

Someday.

Will it be DuckDuckGo?

What’s the difference between Advil and isobutylpropanoicphenolic acid? About $8.24 and a good story.

Or, if you look at it another way, about $114 million a year.

The truth is, there isn’t any difference between isobutylpropanoicphenolic acid (ibuprofen) and Advil. Chemically they are exactly the same. The effect on pain and inflamation is exactly the same. The dose form and the strength are exactly the same. And yet, even when they appear side by side on the shelf, consumers willingly reach past the generic ibuprofin and grab the Advil despite the fact that it costs over eight dollars more. For exactly the same thing.

Why?

Pfizer spends more than $114 million dollars every year on marketing/advertising to tell a story about how Advil is the number one pain medication for joint pain. They claim it’s faster acting than Tylenol. And, the story goes, it not only works on pain, but also reduces fever fast. Generics could tell exactly the same story, but they don’t.

Like all good brand stories, the story Pfizer tells in its marketing creates a strong emotional attachment for consumers. Consumers pay more not only for the drug in the bottle, but the psychological comfort that the familiar brand name and packaging provide. It looks more effective (thanks to packaging cues), it sounds more effective (we recognize the brand), and we believe it is more effective (it costs more so the ingredients must be higher quality, right?).

Would you pay an extra $8 just to feel better about your purchase? Chances are, you (and millions of people just like you) already have.

Source: The Rip.
Hat tip: @SunnyBrown.

This entry was originally posted on January 11, 2007 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time).

On Tuesday Apple’s CEO and master storyteller, Steve Jobs, announced a “revolutionary” new mobile phone with a wide screen touch pad, Internet browser, built-in iPod, visual voice mail, Google maps feature, and much more. The reviews so far have been very good. Time writes: “Apple’s new iPhone could do to the cell phone market what the iPod did to the portable music player market: crush it pitilessly beneath the weight of its own superiority. This is unfortunate for anybody else who makes cell phones, but it’s good news for those of us who use them.”

It’s even better news for Apple’s share holders. On the day of the announcement, Apple’s share price increased more than 8% or $7.10 a share. And shares of both Palm (maker of the Treo) and Research in Motion (maker of blackberry) fell, 5.69% and 7.85% respectively (a collective loss of more than 2 billion dollars).

But here’s the kicker. Apple doesn’t even have a completely functional model yet. Those lucky few who have seen it report that some features are not yet ready for prime time. The demos are cool. The pictures are cool. But Apple won’t have a phone ready to deliver for almost 5 months.

So all Apple really has is a well-designed model and a terrific story, worth more than 6 billion dollars. True, Apple is very good at delivering products that change categories. And that’s what investors are betting on. Given their track record, it’s a pretty safe bet.

But until the iPhone starts shipping, all Apple has is a very impressive, very well-told story.

What’s your story worth?

Hat tip: tuaw.com.

This entry was originally posted on June 22, 2006 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time).

Several weeks ago (May 22, to be exact), BrandWeek published a very interesting article called Broken Promises that discussed the gulf between what customers want and what companies deliver. I thought a few excerpt were worth reprinting here:

“The average level of consumer expectation across 35 major brand categories rose by 4.5% from last year. Over the same period, the survey shows, the average ability of brands to keep up with those hopes decreased 9.2%. Put another way, while brands certainly try to meet the expectations of their loyal customers, those expectations are nonetheless growing two times faster that the brands’ ability to keep up with them.”

The article goes on to say that part of the problem is caused by brand stewards who have promised to “delight” their customers continually. Well, it worked. Customers now expect to be wowed at every turn. The problem is, most brands aren’t up to the task. Also from the article:

“Another dynamic is that consumers themselves are more demanding, perhaps unrealistically. Take the bottled water category, one of the most commodified and yet also one of the fiercest fought. The brands have different names and different bottles, but the product is largely indistinguishable. Most customers would likely agree with this logic were it put to them directly. Yet, their expectations for bottled water rose 8% in 2006, mainly because they felt the brands ought to be increasingly ‘refreshing’.”

Imagine the Dasani or Aquafina brand steward responsible for meeting these expectations. What do you do? Triple filter? Reverse osmosis? Vitamins? Flavors? It’s all been done. Now what? How do you make water 8% more refreshing this year. Then do it again next year. And the year after that. At some point, water will be 100% refreshing (if it isn’t already) and then what?

Setting expectations is a critical part of your brand story. It’s easy to make promises (100% money back guarantee, 99.9% uptime, deep cleans in cold water, etc.). It’s harder to accurately set expectations. Again, from the article:

“If there is one take away from the survey, it’s this: expectations need to be as carefully controlled as the promises. It’s all very well to assure your consumers they’ll feel sexy, cool and rich if they use your brand. But delivering on those feelings might mean toning down the guarantees.”

So what happens when your brand story doesn’t match expectations? When the genius at the Apple genius bar isn’t, what happens to Apple‘s brand story? When the service at Nordstrom isn’t over-the-top, what happens to Nordstrom’s brand story? When NetFlix slows down deliver to its heavy users, what happens to their brand story?

The short answer: when the experience doesn’t match the story, the experience becomes the story. And the brand story you spent so much time and effort to create? Well, that just goes away.

This entry was originally posted on June 12, 2006 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time).

Last week I heard a few minutes of NPR’s On The Media, where Bob Garfield laid out a doomsday scenario for broadcasters (transcript here). Bob said:

“A little over a year ago, we floated a theoretical chaos scenario. It goes like this. Mainstream media, especially network TV, lose so much audience, they can no longer attract the advertising revenue they need to sustain their content, leading to still more audience defection, then more advertiser defection, and so on into the toilet, all before the on-line brave new world is ready to take over. In this past year, plenty has happened to add to the chaos. TiVo and DVR usage is rising, with Forrester Research estimating that by 2008, one in four households will be DVR’ing their favorite shows and skipping past commercials. ITunes has started selling hit TV shows for $1.99, and now all the networks are offering free streaming content on their websites. More options for us, and more jeopardy for the old model.”

Sounds like the premise for Joseph Jaffe’s recent book, Life After the 30-Second Spot, which lays out the same nightmare and about ten different alternatives to traditional, interuptive advertising.

Joe’s not the first person to argue that the 30 second spot is on life support and that consumers are about to pull the plug. Even he admits that the death of the 30 is, by now, a cliche. But it is coming. And marketers who are willing to take a few risks and try new ways to reach their audience may actually look back and agree with Joe that “there couldn’t possibly be a better time to be working in this business.”

Jaffe’s book outlines (in detail) many causes of death for the 30 second spot: fragmentation, commoditization, information overload, clutter, crappy advertising, better educated consumers, and so on. Then he lays out a few ideas for rethinking the way marketers engage consumers. My favorite quote comes from Chapter 9: Re:think Advertising: Make Advertising Relevant Again. Jaffe writes,

“There’s a rather putrid stench emanating from the world of advertising right now. And if you can’t smell it yourself, then you’re either used to it or you’ve lost your sense of smell altogether (in which case, it’s time to consider another career).”

Here, here.

Jaffe goes on to detail newish areas where marketers can get their message and brand in front of consumers: Internet, gaming, experiential marketing (emphasis on physical contact with the brand), search, consumer generated marketing, and more. But Jaffe doesn’t just provide his thinking on the matter. He also includes several short essays by other marketing experts to back up his thinking. Some of these extra essays are better than others, but all provide food for thought. It’s not that there’s a lot new here, but Jaffe wraps it all up very well in one place.

Clearly the jury is still out on the effectiveness of some of these avenues. Do gamers really respond to ads displayed on their PS2s? Do gift bags stimulate trial or simply eat up placement fees?  Did subservient chicken or BMW films really sell anything? Some of the ideas Jaffe lays out will work better than others. But the fact remains, the 30 second spot isn’t working like it used to, so why not try something different (and hopefully effective)?

Overall, this book is a good read. I get the feeling that Jaffe’s just scratched the surface and has even more to say on the subject. If you’re looking for an overview of where advertising/marketing may be headed in the future, check out Life After the 30-Second Spot.

Also of interest:
Joe Jaffe’s Blog, Jaffe Juice.
Get a free chapter from Jaffe’s book, here.
Buy the book from Amazon, here.
The first half of Jaffe’s podcast with American Copywriter.

Full disclosure: Mr. Jaffe practices what he preaches, when it comes to consumer generated marketing. I got my copy of the book on the condition I would read and review it. I agreed, noting that if I didn’t like the book, I would say so (I’ve done that before). Mr. Jaffe had no hesitation, saying, “…all I ask is an authentic review.”