Google Case Study

Based on what you’ve learned so far in this course, regarding the 5 Cs, 4Ps, and STP, complete the assessment questions below. Submit the completed template in the Week 10 assignment submission link.

1. Customers

Who are the current customers/users? Include information related to demographics, psychographics and buying behavior, price sensitivity, customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The majority of the users are under the age years of age and 55% of them are male users. They are of an upper—middle class income structure. They have a higher education and are technological adept. A significant number of the users are married and may have a small family. Most of the users are of business minded professions. A typical Google user is an “on—the – go” person with a busy and active lifestyle. They tend to be intelligent and educated, need information organization and easy access to information from any internet capable device at any time, quickly.

Their demographics vary in different lifestyles such wealthy, mid-class, and upper class. Let’s look at them. The Affluent Suburbia, the wealthiest households in the United States living in an exclusive suburban neighborhood enjoying the of everything that life has to offer. Upscale America, college – educated couples and families living in the metropolitan sprawl earning upscale incomes providing them with large homes and very comfortable and active lifestyles. Small – town Contentment, middle –aged, upper – middle – class families living in small towns and satellite cities with moderate educations employed in white – collar, blue – collar, and service professionals. Varying Lifestyles, residents who primarily live in group quarters including students, military personnel, and institution populations.

You have the Savvy Student, who are the undergraduate that range from 18 – 25 and the graduate student that range in age from 23 – 28. They are typically from the middle to upper – class and well educated families. They strive to find information fast and efficiently, this is something that they have become accustomed to in this age of technology. They have a great interest in the “latest information and entertainment applications”, while they also consider social media to the most efficient and important way of communicating. They use the internet for their leisure, scholastics endeavors and they have the need for Google Docs. The Google Docs is a way they share information with other people.

Next you have The Ever Expanding Entrepreneurial Enterprise. They consist of all forms of businesses, corporations to the mom-and-pop operations. They want internet based, hassle free way to conduct their operations that are cost-effective. Also want to reach their customers through relevant, personalized internet advertising such as AdWords. They want to grow rapidly and have multiple means of production and or service conception and production. They are Google’s most lucrative customer. Their businesses tend to target Google due to the search engine and their many applications of user traffic.

Then we have The Leisurely Fad-Following Family. They are made up of the middle – class to the upper – middle – class families. They are the small white-collar, blue-collar, and or service industry job families. They are educated and family-oriented, they would be the soccer moms, the gamers, single moms and the sport fanatics. They use the internet for mainly leisure entertainment, communication purposes and they use it at least once a day.  They want to have the latest in technology products and the nicest things. Also they do most of their shopping for the things that they need on line. Most of them will have Droids that will use Google’s Android platform. They must have the hottest and the newest trends.

Finally, we have The Hard-Up Household. This is the low income of the middle-aged families that have large families and have a high school education or lower. They live paycheck-to-paycheck and really never has any down time. They hardly ever use the internet and if they do it will be brief. What they do use the internet for is e-mails, on-line banking and bill pay. While they also do not have the means to upgrade the equipment they have. Also they rarely will shop on-line and are not brand loyal. They will use whatever internet search engine they can get.

What do the customers buy/use?

Depending on what lifestyle they come from depends on what they buy/use. If they come from the Affluent Suburbia they are the ones that will have the top dollar cars, (BMW, Mercedes, Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, etc.…). They will have the homes that are in the upper six digits or higher. Nothing but the best of the best for them. Upscale America wants the most modern of modern. They will be the ones with the apartments in the big cities such as (New York City, Washington D.C, Los Angeles, etc.…), or they can have the large homes in the most exclusive neighborhoods. They stay busy with their country clubs or Yacht clubs. They buy will do most of their shopping on-line for furniture, clothing, shoes and whatever else is needed for their home. The Small-towners just buy what they need to keep them and their families going. They buy the best that they can afford and live in small towns. They would be looking at cars that are compact to mid-size and are less than $30,000. Their homes would range in the price line of $100,000 to $200,000 in today’s markets. Varying Lifestyles, are people who are in college, institutionalize or in the military. They have very little money to spend and cannot afford to buy anything on line. Students have only the money that their parents give them or from the part time work that they can do off campus. If they’re in an institution they have no money. So there for they cannot purchase anything. The military personal can purchase most of their stuff at the PX. They may go and purchase off the base once in a while.

What changes can the company/brand expect in the future? How can the company/brand better serve its customers? Include information about potential opportunities and threats.

Google has shored up its defense against Facebook’s mobile advance with bringing out the Android M 6.0. It has added context- based searches of apps and replacements of app-browsers with Chrome overlays. Google is also expanding into the enterprise market with Android for Work and Chrome for Work. The two efforts aimed at pulling small and medium-sized businesses away from Microsoft and Apple. Google will expand into streaming music with Google Play Music this could also generate fresh revenue from ads and subscriptions. They also have plenty of opportunities for long-term growth. This might even include driverless cars, smart home efforts, robotic projects, artificial intelligence, medical equipment, and even medicine. This might a long shot that may never generate meaningful revenue. Just one of these being successful could diversify Google’s top line away from advertising.