‘Gone Google’ Goes Global – ad campaign targets business customers
Google’s efforts to get us all to switch to Google Apps is expanding outwards from its initial campaign in several U.S. cities to cover the rest of the world. The Gone Google marketing campaign uses the millions of businesses, organizations, and schools as the main draw for others to follow suit. The question now is whether Microsoft will respond to persuade people to stick with Office.
Most of us know Google first and foremost as a search company, and use its search engine every day. It’s so prevalent that “to Google” is now a verb rather than merely a company name. But Google is so much more these days, being one of the largest companies in the world and having products including YouTube, Maps, and a range of Web applications known collectively as Google Apps. Which is rather fitting.
At the beginning of August, Google began its ‘Going Google‘ campaign in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Boston, as well as on the Web. The campaign used the fact that 3,000 organizations sign up to Google Apps every day to try and persuade everyone else to do the same. Google Apps includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and more besides.
Now, according to TechCrunch, the ‘Gone Google’ campaign (Going or Gone, it’s all the same to Google) is expanding to the U.K., France, Canada, Japan, Australia and Singapore. advertisements on billboards will be shown at train stations and airports in those countries.
Google claims 2 million businesses are now using Google Apps but doesn’t break down that figure into any detail. The chance are most are using free apps rather than paid apps, and most of them could just be using Gmail rather than any of the other apps.
Regardless, Microsoft is the obvious target as it pretty much owns this sector at the moment. 500 million people are estimated to be using a version of Office, and most of those will have been paid for somewhere along the line. Google is making a good attempt at getting people to switch but I doubt Microsoft is too worried at this point, especially with its Office Web launching in the near future.
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