The King is Dead. Long Live the King.

google.jpgThere was a lot of talk last week about Google’s recent quarter with profits rising by 69% in the quarter. Google’s got its groove back and it is becoming clear that it is not just an expansion of the pie, but it is at the expense of its rivals. Elinor Mills of CNET News explains:

The contrast between the financial results announced last week for the two top search engine companies couldn’t have been more stark… Google’s share is rising at the expense of Yahoo and Microsoft. While Google’s share rose 6.1 percentage points last year, Yahoo’s fell 0.6 percentage points and Microsoft’s dropped 1.1 percentage point, ComScore numbers show.

There is no better predictor of the future than the past. And interestingly, we’ve seen this story before, played out in previous generations of the computing era. Each computing era has had its own killer app, and each of these eras is marked by the struggle for dominance with an eventual winner being crowned. King Microsoft, it’s time to hand the throne over to Prince Google.

In my lifetime, the three killer apps have been: operating systems, followed by office productivity software, and now in the internet age, search. Each of these have been figurative money factories for the winners. And each has been marked by a fierce struggle with an eventually winner being crowned (soon followed by talk of monopoly power).

Let’s take a look at these battles:

Battle of GUI Operating Systems: 1984 – 1995 (1)

  • Combatants: Apple (Mac OS, 1984), IBM (OS/2, 1987), Microsoft (Windows, 1985)
  • Apple took the early lead in the battle for the GUI operating systems with the introduction of the first Mac OS. Microsoft didn’t start to establish it’s dominance until the introduction of Windows 3.1 in 1992. IBM took at swing at reclaiming the operating system of the personal computing platform it created in 1987 but it never got traction. By 1995 with the introduction of Windows 95, the war had been won by Microsoft.
  • Winner: Microsoft

Battle of the Office Software Suite: 1990 – 1995 (2)

  • Combatants: Apple (AppleWorks 1991), Corel (Corel Office, 1991), Lotus (Lotus SmartSuite, 1992), Microsoft (MS Office, 1993)
  • In the early 90’s software makers started to bundle word processing software with spreadsheet software. Wordperfect had been the leading word processing software until Microsoft released its Office Suite. Lotus was an early player too, led by its early spreadsheet software, Lotus 123. Microsoft eventually established dominance as compatibility became crucial for collaboration, driven by its ubiquity in the business world.
  • Winner: Microsoft

Battle of Internet Search: 1996 – 2007 (3)

  • Combatants: Ask (1996), Google (1998), MSN Search (2005), Yahoo Search (2004)
  • The first Internet era created search engines. They were features of portals that were somewhat of an afterthought because the money was in banner ads. Goto.com, (later Overture) invented search advertising business model in 1998 (4). And immediately a business was created out of search. Google soon perfected the the search advertising business model with the launch of Adwords in 2000 (5). And though Yahoo, MSN, & Ask all relaunched their search engines during the mid-2000’s, Google’s dominance has been established.
  • Winner: Google

I believe that it is time to close the chapter on this era’s killer app: search advertising. Google is clearly dominant and is pulling away from the field. I wonder what the next great business model will be.

WOMBAT 3 Case Studies (Part 1 of 3): Mini Cooper

This is the first in a 3-part post series about case studies from day 2 of WOMBAT 3. The panels went much faster on the second day because they were all half-hour case studies stacked right up against each other, so I’m only now getting these great panels posted.

Mini did an amazing presentation about tapping into their existing community using word of mouth. When they started, their community of Mini owners was not being tapped. They were always good at making their community happy, and giving what they wanted (one of the coolest cars on earth), but they didn’t use the community as a core component of their marketing. In other words, they never expected more from their community.

The car company had spent years building an amazing product, not to mention an amazing brand, and their users were actually a core component of the equity of the brand. So, they needed to figure out how to tap into that. 2006 was an important year for mini, but the problem was that they needed to maintain the brand’s momentum and cool while having no new news (because the next model wasn’t being released for another year). It was a cool time to do some really cool stuff.
One thing they did was made a community film about a cross country road trip where they got tons of Mini owners to participate. They made the film to learn something about the culture of the brand. They got really clever with this campaign and even created these funny art pieces that participants could leave on their desks at work that said things like, “John was recently diagnosed with a mystery ailment by the center for disease control and has left to drive cross country to get some help.” Ballsy. Clever.

Another thing they did was to create a Mini covert kit which was a decoder that revealed secret messages in print ads and media (sort of like being the ultimate insider). Tough luck if you’re not a mini owner, but that’s sort of the point. They make their community very happy, while at the same time making the brand very aspirational – we want a decoder, we want in on the joke.

Their last example was of the Mini Motorby campaign where owners were given small key fob. They could logon to a microsite and register the fob with their information. Then, in select cities, when they drive by a Mini billboard, it would talk to them. Amazing as that is, it would talk to them in front of the hundreds of other drivers in traffic with the owner. Once they figured out what was going on, how many people said to themselves, “I want on of those!”?

All of these campaigns illustrate how after they discovered some unique qualities about their community, they could push the limits of those relationships and their own creativity to do some really amazing things.

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