San Francisco — Google and Microsoft seem to be facing off bitter rivalry against each other recently; as Microsoft recently rolled out “Bing,” its much hyped search engine to compete against the search giant, while Google launched “Chrome,” their new operating system, as an assault to the age old Microsoft’s Windows. But now, Google is back on the offensive, with a major marketing strategy for Google Apps called “Going Google” to the next level by renting prominent billboards in major U.S. Cities.
The campaign, dubbed as “Going Google,” has a very clear objective: Microsoft Office. Now commuters in New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco will be welcomed by a state-of-the-art series of ads for Google Apps beginning Monday and running for a month portraying how and why some 3,000 organizations are signing up to use Google apps each day.
Some commuters will see billboards such as these touting Google Apps for a solid month. (Credit: Google)
The idea of this campaign is to grab the attention of IT managers blocked up in horrific traffic spots like New York’s West Side Highway or San Francisco’s U.S. 101 and show companies on the benefits of switching to Google’s Apps can bring; they have introduced a website dedicated to this here, displaying the ways that businesses can be helped out.
The billboards will be placed on the 101 in San Francisco, the West Side Hwy in New York, the Ike in Chicago, and Mass Pike in Boston. Google says that the vinyl being used to create these new messages each day will be recycled or reused into either computer bags or shopping bags.
Google has firmly increased the drumbeat behind Google Apps over the past several months, openly touting it as an alternative to Microsoft’s suite of office productivity and e-mail software applications designed to make the switch easier. According to TechCrunch, the advertising campaign has a marked a rather apparent target of Microsoft Office. They will be displaying the reasons as to, “how and why some 3,000 organizations are signing up to use Google apps each day,” although they are not stopping there.
According to Google, so far more than 1.75 million businesses, schools and organizations have joined to use the assortments of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and the other Google apps. Nevertheless, these figures still represents a significant drop in the bucket compared to the number of companies that use Microsoft Office and its other enterprise solutions.
Google is also seeking to use the viral message platform of choice these days to spread the “Going Google” message: Twitter. At the bottom of its blog post on the matter, Google urges people that use its apps to “Tweet your story” and provides a link to auto-populate a tweet with the #gonegoogle hashtag. You can also follow the GoogleAtWork Twitter account to follow the Gone Google stories.
Traditionally Google is has not been big spender on ads, but, of late, it has produced TV spots for its Chrome browser and posted a cryptic series of job ads on Silicon Valley billboards years ago. And now, Google is also promising to give away bundles of “goodies” each week in August to users who have Gone Google and fill out a Google Doc describing their experience.