Anyone wonder why Google launched its new browser, Chrome, by leaking a comic book to an influential blogger?
Now, let’s not kid ourselves. What works for Google may NOT work for us. I might send a comic book about my new product to some blogger I know… but chances are it won’t be covered by just about every news outlet on the planet within 24 hours of release! Still, there are lessons to be drawn from the launch of Chrome that we might consider applying in our own marketing…
First of all, I should point out that Google didn’t quite mean to launch Chrome when it did. Writing in the Official Google Blog, Suncar Pichai said that Google “hit ’send’ a bit early” when it sent its comic book to blogger, Philipp Lenssen. Nevertheless, Google’s strategy all along appears to have been to send the comic book to Mr Lenssen, who runs Google Blogoscoped, a blog that has covered Google product launches since 2003.
Lesson #1: tell influential fans – ideally bloggers with nearly 50,000 unique visitors per day (which is what Blogoscoped gets according to Google Trends) – about your upcoming product launch. They will spread the word on your behalf and their ‘independence’ will give your launch greater intrigue and credibility.
Secondly, Google refrained from using some kind of flashy, multimedia presentation to introduce Chrome in favor of a comic book. Not just any comic book. One written and illustrated by Scott McCloud, the creator of ‘Making Comics’, ‘Reinventing Comics’ and the critically acclaimed ‘Understanding Comics’. Google was apparently attracted to Mr McCloud for his talent in using comics to explain technical content to non-technical readers.
Lesson #2: consider the humble comic book as a medium to explain complex ideas. Not convinced? As Mr McCloud points out in The New York Times: a comic is what tells us what to do in an airplane emergency.
Surely another attraction of using a comic book to explain Chrome was the novelty, contrariness and simplicity of doing so. Google seems to have this uncanny ability to zig when everyone else is zagging… but at the same time has always been about simplifying complexity. So while a comic book launch is rather different… it’s also very Google. Apparently Google is run by engineers, but I reckon their marketing is brilliant.
Lesson #3: be different – stand out from the crowd – whilst also staying true to your values.
Having said all this… did you actually read that comic? Or did you just go ahead and download Chrome? (Or did you ignore the hoopla altogether?)
Source: Sundar Pichai , “A Fresh Take On The Browser”, The Official Google Blog, September 1, 2008, Philipp Lenssen, “Google Chrome, Google’s Browser Project”, Google Blogoscoped, September 1, 2008, George Gene Gustines, “Archie and Jughead? No, Javascript”, The New York Times, September 7, 2008
