The Importance of Branding in Google and Lego Case Study

The Importance of Branding in Google and Lego - Case Study Example Branding is so important in every industry and computer and communications industries are also not an exception. â€Å"Brands need to find a voice that resonates, that surprises and that entices. This means understanding better your client, which clearly means listening more to your client base† (Social Search: Getting Personal is Getting Evermore Important for Brand Marketers). In the case of search engine business, Google has a voice that resonates, but in the case of social networking, Facebook enjoys that voice. Google is facing stiff competition from many others such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, Apple, Facebook etc. In order to counter the threats from such huge companies, effective branding strategies are necessary for Google. Even though Google is the number one player in the search engine business, they are not so in social networking industry. Facebook holds the number one spot in social networking. Lego on the other hand is one of the prominent toy makers in the worl d. Even though they were the fifth largest toy maker in the world, they suffered lot of setbacks in the recent past because of the increased competition. â€Å"The Lego Group’s vision was to inspire the children to explore and challenge their own creative potential† (Lego Group: An Outsourcing Journey, p.2). However they failed to do so in a consistent basis and suffered severe setbacks recently. In order to regain its lost brand image, Lego is currently implementing many strategies. â€Å"The framework for LEGO’s branding effort expanded from its initial marketing focus into a company-wide reorganization that involved several change management programs and an ongoing initiative to create and manage global brand coherence†(Schultz & Hatch, p.6). Role of branding in the Business strategies of Google and Lego Branding holds an important place in the business strategies of both Google and LEGO. Globalization has brought immense challenges in the global marke t and it is difficult for even huge companies to survive in the market with the help of traditional brand building strategies. Diversification of business is inevitable at present and better brand image in one market segment may not help a company in other segments. For example, Google failed to become the number one in social networking or ecommerce even though they are so in search engine business. Same way Lego also failed drastically to hold their top spot in toy market because of their inability to diversify in to other areas. â€Å"The name LEGO is a combination of Danish words â€Å"leg† and â€Å"godt,† meaning â€Å"play well†Ã¢â‚¬  (Lego Group: An Outsourcing Journey, p.7). Lego was committed to deliver quality products to its children based clients. They concentrated too much on toy market alone which caused problems to them. Both Google and Lego should concentrate more on product diversification and brand development strategies in each segment. The y should realize that better image in one business segment may not help them in other segments. For each business segments, they need separate brand building strategies. Threats to the brand equities of Google and Lego When started Google plus, Google thought that they can utilize their brand equity in search engine business in social networking also. They failed to realize that both search engine and social networking businesses are entirely different businesses and it is difficult to convince the customers using the brand image alone. At present the