My step dad and my little sisters came into DC a couple of weeks ago. We were heading out to brunch on Sunday and I asked if we should take an Uber to the resturant. My step dad asked “What’s an Uber?”
I was a little shocked that he didn’t know what Uber is, but then I took some steps back realzing that my family is based in a huge suburben city where everyone drives everywhere anyone. It did spark some curiousity though.
What makes a brand big enough that everyone knows about it? What is the tipping point? When do they reach the masses so the moment of “What is that?” is gone? What makes a brand become a household name?
I looked at trends with technology companies to identify what factors went into place to gain the household name status.
Brands Analyzed:
1. Google
Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin and incoporated it in 1998. Google went public in 2004. It is known for many things, but most notably is search engine component. Now rather than people saying they will search for something, they are mostly saying they’ll “google it.”
2. Youtube
Youtube was founded on February 14th, 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim where users can upload videos to view and share with others. Besides some good corgi videos that we have always have a hard time tearing ourselves away from, most can’t leave the platform either as it boosts over 6 billion video plays each month.
3. Uber
Uber was founded in March 2009 by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp. Although, I think it has a ways to go in achieving the household name level, Uber is well on its way. Uber is in over 35 countries and gives millions of rides a day.
How brands become household names?
Where and Who Still Matters
I got an email from Uber the other day saying that it was coming to my hometown, Virginia Beach (Hampton Roads). However, this is after landing in over 70 other cities. Uber has strategically picked epicenters of activity where the potential users would amplify the brand. Uber first landed in San Francisco and then other big cities after.
Demographics and geography drive marketing campaigns. As mentioned above, brands are completely aware of this and strategically place their efforts in a localized way, especially when they want to expand their reach.
Convergence of Digital and Traditional Marketing Efforts
To couple with the localized marketing efforts, as brands try and reach everyone they can there are still tactics on digital and traditional to always reach their audiences.
Each of these brands have most of their marketing efforts digitally focused. Between the emails I receive and reading about each of these brands daily in the media, all of these brands have clear a clear digital marketing focus.
Most, if not all of TrackMaven’s marketing is based digitally and to be honest, I don’t have a lot of experience in coordinating traditional marketing tactics. However, I do know what traditional marketing tactics are as I still receive large amounts of it.
When I was in Chicago this past week, I saw 3 billboards and Bus stop posters from YouTube with users that have millions of followers. It was funny seeing a digitally focuses company using a traditional marketing effort to bring even more views back to the platform. (I did in fact watch a YouTube video after I saw the Billboard)
Although these brands have focused on digital, there is still a convergence of traditional marketing efforts in order to reach their entire audiences.
Time is Everything
If you look at Google and YouTube, you can see that each has a good number of years under its belt to carry out many tactics to become known to a huge part of the global population. In comparison to other household brands, these two brands aren’t as old in age, but they still have some years under their belts.
You can see the progression of each of these brands through Google Trends over time…
Google
YouTube
Uber
Brands don’t just want to become “big” they want to become a household name. They don’t want anyone to ever wonder who they are when someone brings them up, brands want the household name status. There isn’t a specific formula, but there are target areas that these brands have hit in order to reach a wide audience.