Google Chrome adverts – coming to a television near you soon
By Dave Parrack
Google really, really wants you to use Chrome as your new browser of choice. As proof of its commitment, the search giant is advertising the product on television, starting this weekend. Will this be enough to tempt people away from Internet Explorer and Firefox?
The Web browser market has for years been dominated by just one entrant – Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. By bundling IE with its ever-popular operating systems (something which looks set to continue with the new Windows 7) Microsoft was able to boost its browser to the dizzying heights of having a 94 percent market share in 2003.
That share has since dropped considerably (as low as 66 percent currently), mainly thanks to Internet Explorer getting progressively less appealing while alternatives such as Mozilla Firefox and Opera have been vastly improved. There is also the fact that Macs have been selling well in recent years and most Apple fans stick with the Safari browser for their Web surfing needs.
Google made its first foray into the browser market when it launched the Chrome beta in September 2008. After a period of testing and intense interest, the final version was released in December. It now has a market share of around 2 percent, not great, especially compared to Firefox’s 22 percent, but not bad just a few months in.
Google has been pushing Chrome quite aggressively. There are links to the download page on the Google Search homepage and YouTube, and there is also a special Chrome Shorts YouTube channel with a number of short clips extolling the virtues of the browser – it’s fast, free, cool, and made by Google.
Now, the company has announced plans to advertise Google Chrome on the Television, using one of the Chrome Shorts produced by the Google Japan team a couple of months ago. The advert (embedded below) will start to show on “various television networks starting this weekend.”
The ad is short, sweet, and very to-the-point. It effectively conveys how simple Chrome is to use and almost instructs viewers to install it at their first opportunity. I can see some less tech-savvy people scratching their heads and wondering what the hell a Chrome is but I can also see this helping increase Google’s market share substantially if enough people decide to give it a go.
This is an unusual move by Google because it usually relies on word-of-mouth of partnership deals to grow its business. It became the number one search engine in the world almost exclusively by word-of-mouth but it clearly feels the browser market needs a more intense strategy.
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May 9th, 2009
I can’t help being reminded of how Microsoft forced Explorer on the world by using its market power, at the expense of Netscape. But perhaps it’s a case of poetic justice.