This is the fourth part of a marketing plan for Google Inc. that I did with a group of peers in my Marketing 311 class.

1. Google Product Mix and Product Lines
Desktop Products
Standalone Applications- Convenience Goods
This product Line includes products that enhance your desktop and are strictly
Google products, such as the web browser Google Chrome or the organization tool
Google Desktop. Google’s standalone applications allow the customer to, among many
other things, organize information, edit photographs, search your desktop, and
communicate with others. These applications are designed to make the customer’s
desktop informative, entertaining, and all-inclusive.
Desktop Extensions- Convenience Goods
This product line includes products that are designed by Google to enhance
desktop applications that have been created by another organization. A prime example of
a product offered in this product line is the Google Toolbar, which can be added to the
web browsers Internet Explorer and Firefox.
• Both of these product lines are considered to have convenience goods because
they are used frequently and little information is needed in the decision to use the
product. There are also multiple comparable competitor products on the market
that the customer is free to use in place of Google desktop products.
Mobile Products
Online- Convenience Goods
This product line includes products that can be accessed through a web browser
on a mobile device or a desktop web browser. Google Mobilizer, which makes any web-
site mobile friendly, is a prime example of Google’s online mobile offerings.
• This product line is considered to have convenience goods because they are used
frequently, require little information to decide upon, and are highly
interchangeable with comparable competitor products.
Downloadable- Shopping Goods
This product line includes products that must be downloaded from a mobile web
browser to a mobile device. Google Goggles, which uses images to facilitate searches, is
an example of new mobile search device that must be downloaded in order to be used on
a mobile phone.

2. • This product line is considered to have shopping goods because most of the
products offered have unique features that must be compared to competitor
goods.
Web Products
Advertising- Industrial Services/ Shopping Goods
This product line includes Google’s most profitable product AdWords. Google’s
advertising products are highly customizable by the advertiser as well as tailored to the
consumer without being disruptive to the consumer’s internet experience. These products
can be used by Google web sites as well as non-Google web sites.
• This product line is considered an industrial service because it is used to aid the
advertiser of a business in reaching customers as well as establishing and
maintaining a good reputation to consumers. It can also be classified as a
shopping good because the advertiser must weigh the characteristics of similar
competitor services to choose the best product.
Communication and Publishing- Convenience Goods
This product line features products that allow customers to connect with others
via publishing products such as YouTube and the online phone communication system
Google Voice. These products also include email services, document sharing, research
tools, and calendar tools. This product line is designed to make the consumer’s web-base
life streamlined and easily accessible to those who the consumer wishes to share with.
• This product line is considered to have convenience goods because the customer
uses the products frequently, yet they are highly interchangeable with
comparable competitor products.
Development- Specialty Goods
This product line includes products that are designed to help web developers
create web based applications. This product line includes Android, the open sourced
mobile phone platform. These products include programming codes, open source codes,
JavaScript tools, and the developing Google Chrome operating system that programmers
can comment upon.
• This product line is considered to have specialty goods because the products are
intended for a specific target market that needs to have a high degree of
knowledge before using the products.
Mapping- Shopping Goods
This product line includes tools used to find directions (Google Maps), give
directions (Google Map Maker), view planets and Earth’s moon (Google Earth, Google

3. Mars), and plan trips (Google City Tours, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit). These
products are essentially internet based navigation tools.
• This product line is considered to have shopping goods because the products are
used infrequently, requiring a certain amount of information before a choice is
made to use them because they include unique features.
Search- Convenience Goods
This product line includes the claim to Google’s fame, the Google Search Engine.
It also includes specialized search applications (Google Life Search, Google Finance) that
allow customers to search for virtually anything they could want to know or need in a
specialized search database. It also includes products that were developed using Google
search technology like Google Checkout and Google Fast Flip.
• This product line is considered to have convenience goods because the products
are used frequently, require little information before use, and there are
considerable comparable competitor products available to interchange with
Google products.
Statistics- Unsought Goods
This product line includes various platforms for viewing and reading statistics.
Google Trends is an application used for viewing web search statistics. Google Analytics
uses statistical data from Google AdWords to help advertisers optimize their AdWords
advertisements. Google Gapminder is an interactive statistics platform that allows
customers to view the nation’s statistics.
• This product line is considered to have unsought goods because the products
must be sought out when a need arises, such as a research project or a specific
statistical question that must be answered.
Hardware
Business- Accessory Equipment
This product line includes Google Search Appliance and Google Mini which are
“hardware device[s] that can be hooked up to [business] intranets for indexing/searching
company files” (“List of Google…”).
• This product line is considered to be accessory equipment because it is used
within an office setting and is purchased only once in a small amount.
Phones- Shopping Goods

4. This product line includes the mobile phones Nexus One and Droid that “run the
Android operating system” (List of Google…).
• This product line is considered to have shopping goods because the customer
must have a lot of information before the purchase decision. The customer must
also weigh unique features of the Google products against comparable
competitor products.
New Product Development
Android
Android is an open source technology smart-phone platform that was first
released in October 2008 (“Android…”). It is increasing in popularity rapidly with the
release of the Motorola Droid and the Nexus One. Android is new compared to existing
products, new to the organization because it is a significant jump in the technology, and
new to the consumer. This revolutionary technology allows a seamless user experience
and is considered dynamically continuous innovation as the customer must learn about
the operating system without completely abandoning previous behaviors. Garter, Inc.
projects that by 2012, the Android platform would become the second most popular
smart-phone platform on the market (“Android…”).
Google Goggles
Google Goggles is a new imaging search device that is still in the development
phase yet is available for Android phones. It is a completely new way of searching the
internet that uses image recognition technology to search for information based solely on
a picture taken with a camera phone. This product is truly innovative and considered new
to the organization and the consumer. Since this product is the only one of its kind, the
consumer will have to learn a completely new process making Google Goggles
discontinuously innovative.
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is an organized, balanced, fresh, and easy web browser that was
created to be fast in every aspect with quick startups, fast web page loads, and more
speed when running complicated web applications. It was designed with the protection of
the company’s users in mind giving the user the ability to regulate their private
information while Google Chrome secures the information they share online. While the
product is new to the organization, consumers and existing products, it is dynamically
continuous innovation because the consumer must learn a new way to navigate a web
browser.

5. Product Life Cycle
Google, Inc. has been working tirelessly to transform from just a search engine to
an internet media provider. With the release of Android, Google Chrome, and various
mobile and web applications, Google’s goal of becoming a frontrunner in the internet
media market is swiftly becoming a reality. While the Google search engine is well
known, a lot of the newer Google media products are just coming into the limelight as
popularity of their Android smart-phone platform is growing exponentially. As Google
continues to lead the pack in internet media innovation, it is unfair to say that Google has
reached maturity in the product life cycle. The company’s new direction towards internet
media almost makes Google a realtively “new” company with different goals and ideas.
Google, Inc. is continuously growing and most of its internet media is growing in
popularity with consumers, so it is evident that Google is in the growth stage of the
product life cycle. While Google has always had competitors, the company is entering
into a new market and has even more competition than before. Google products are
gaining popularity at a steadily increasing rate yet they are not pushing competitors out of
the market just yet. In fact, Google is causing some competitors to band together, as
evident by the Microsoft-Yahoo search merger. Google’s talk of releasing an operating
system, Google ChromeOS, is a very powerful example that Google is still in its growth
stage as it attempts to switch from search to internet media.
An innovative company by nature, it is difficult to say if Google will enter the
maturity stage anytime soon. Attempting to overtake the internet media market is a
daunting task yet Google has used a very intelligent strategy- they simply sit back and
watch their competitors. Google internet media products, for the most part, are simply
more innovative, de-bugged versions of comparable competitor products. Google
assesses competitor products, finds the flaws in those products, and then creates a better,
more attractive product for the consumer. Google is nearly always the last company to
release products into the market, which may not seem like an advantage. Yet their
products are of higher quality than those that are rushed to be put out-and consumers
realize this quality in the long-run. It is also an advantage that Google uses a family
branding strategy for most of its products (notable exceptions are Android and YouTube,
individual brands) because the customer-who recognizes the quality of Google products-
will have a sense of instant “faith” in the product. It is apparent that Google, Inc. will be
a mainstay in the internet media market for quite sometime given the company’s success
thus far.

6. Works Cited
“Android (operating system).” Wikipedia.com. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Web.
4 March
2010.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(mobile_device_platform)>. 4 March 2010.
“List of Google Products.” Wikipedia.com. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Web,
2 March 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products> 4 March
2010.
Works Consulted
“Google Goggles.” Googlelabs.com. Google Labs, Web. 2010
<http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/#landmark> 3 March 2010.
“Why Use Google Chrome?” Google.com. Google, Inc., Web. 2010.
<http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/more/index.html> 3 March 2010.