Last week, a rumor emerged that has sent retail pundits aflutter with delight and speculation. Google: search giant, arbiter of the Android operating system, and seemingly omnipotent part of the digital world, might be entering the retail space in America. With its hand in dozens of industries—from energy to fitness, and mobile phones to historical book preservation—Google is running out of digital kingdoms to conquer. The only solution is to enter the physical world with a brick-and-mortar store.
Google has already experimented with retail in other countries. Most notably Androidland, a series of stores throughout South Asia and Australia that are operated by carriers but heavily branded with the Android mascot and its garish green color scheme. With this though, it seemed like Androidland was more about platform recognition and experiential product exploration than product movement.
Although Google created and maintains Android, Androidland was not about Google. It was about carriers and third party partners showing off products that happened to carry Google software. Google’s retail ambitions in the U.S. are far more important. This will not be an Androidland. This will be a Google store through and through.
What a Google brand would look like
In the past two years, Google has made significant changes to its branding, placing greater emphasis on the company as a household name. Google has begun to develop a company-wide design language and style: There’s a typography, color scheme, and cohesive look to all of Google’s products that was lacking for years. Just like an average person can differentiate an Apple product from a Microsoft device, consumers will be able to identify Google’s unique homegrown products from its competitors.
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Empowered by this new visual identity, Google is fighting back against third party OEMs that skin its Android mobile software into an unrecognizable form. The company has scored key wins from popular OEMs like Samsung and HTC, who have agreed to make clean “Google Play editions” of its flagship smartphones.
Most importantly though, Google now makes self-branded hardware and has products to sell in a retail store. The Nexus line of smartphones and tablets, along with devices like Chromecast, the Chromebook Pixel, and new ventures like Google Glass are all branded as Google devices before anything else. They all sport the increasingly iconic colors of Google: green, red, blue, and yellow.
Date: March 24, 2014