Why Google Sucks at Marketing

Google (GOOG) does many things well. It's good at making money from search-based ads, writing software, attracting attention from regulators, and ticking off China. But one thing Google does not do well is market and sell new products.

Google is so bad at marketing that it probably couldn't sell umbrellas in a monsoon. Look at the company's recent track record:

• The Super Bowl ad, while good in some respects, focused on where the company was already doing well rather than doing anything for Google Apps, the Nexus One phone, or any of the plethora of areas in which the company dabbles and never establishes a viable paying business.
• Google's brand is strong but incredibly limited. It couldn't even sell 200,000 of its Nexus One phones. It came out with an unlocked phone that, because of its technical specifications, would only work on T-Mobile -- hardly the market leader â€" and then only offering the $179 price to new carrier customers and not for existing T-Mobile users who might want to switch.
• Actually, the entire Nexus One announcement was a disaster. It failed to pull off its two major themes: a new way to purchase phones, and the emergence of a new handset class that Google wanted to call "superphones."
• Last fall, Google tried promoting a new product through bloggers. It was for the Sidewiki service, which immediately received critical backlash.
• Google's attempt to promote its new search engine was a complete snooze-fest.
• Wave has been another marketing so-show. Google built hype for the new product and then waited to see people adopt it without effectively communicating what it did. Critics talked of it as an email replacement, which wasn't the point at all. What has Google done? Waited for people to see the light without pointing it out to them.
• Wave was supposed to change everything. But then, all Google product announcements are supposed to change everything, and often one Google product will duplicate what another one does. At least as far as anyone can tell.
• The company's only real financial success, advertising, uses passive marketing -- waiting for customers to decide to use it. In fact, even that wouldn't exist had Google not purchased the company that developed the system.
• Google recently announced that it had 25 million Google Apps users and didn't even bother to compare that number to a much smaller one just a year before. It could have boasted enormous percentage growth.
• The consumer privacy issues it raises actually damage its "don't be evil" core branding and positioning. Just look at the reaction when Google introduced Buzz. That is, when everyone could finally get in, as the first day of the grand launch left many Gmail users locked out.

If that weren't bad enough for marketing, Google also has virtually zero emotional intelligence. Marketing is always an attempt to touch people's emotions, and Google acts as if it can sit back and wait for people to behave "rationally." A perfect example was when designer Douglas Bowman left the company and noted how it was mired in data, as if a calculator could make wise decisions.

But the real sinker is that from the "we-hire-only-the-elite" HR policy to the "all-we-need-do-is-announce-the-product" mentality, Google has a deep belief in its innate superiority. Of course it doesn't market products. Why does it have to spend money when everyone should know to use their products and services? Why would anyone question what it does with personal information? Why would a government agency pay attention to Google, rather than some lesser organization? And if you have to wonder why you might want a given Google product, you're clearly not good enough or smart enough to use it. Until that attitude alters, or until the magic money-well of search advertising starts to dry up, I wouldn't expect marketing at the company to improve at all. Being an 800-pound gorilla doesn't mean that you know how to market. And by the time Google really needs to do so, it will be too late to change.

Image: stockxchng.com user GlennPeb, site standard license.