Today is Samuel Morse’s birthday! How do I know? Google tells me that.

Google's Samuel Morse Logo

Question is why Google should take the pain of pointing us to Samuel Morse’s birthday?

Buzz?Look at blog search results (1,255 so far) and the buzz this new logo has generated on twitter (link).

Is that all? Is seasonality all about creating one-day-hype? (after all, this involves consistent effort from editorial/engg/creative teams etc)?

Well, Yes and No.

Yes, for the fact that it keeps the buzz around Google alive.

And ‘No” for the fact that there is something more than buzz that Google gets out of all this ‘seasonal’ tweaks :

Connecting with the community/user base and reinforcing it’s stand/positioning (all on your subconscious mind) as a technology company – a company that celebrates innovation.

Lessons for Startups

You don’t have a human touch, unless you actually make an attempt to relate to your user’s emotions.

As a consumer/user of your service, people do tend to relate to ‘service which they like and trust. Liking and Trust from how closely they related to your service/what do they ‘think’ of your service – all in their subconscious mind.

Ask your friend, what do they think of Google? Chances are that they’ll say it’s an innovative company – while most of Google’s recent ‘innovation’ haven’t done well so far.

So what makes them believe that Google is an innovative company? Infact, have you ever wondered why a simple tweak/feature release from Google gets far more buzz than other companies?

Couple of important points that every startup needs to understand:

• Take a stand/Define your positioning (do you want to sound cool to geekies? or you want to be a community player?)
• Know your customer (Why product companies should know the color of their customers’ hair?)
• Dance with them. Tell them what they don’t know/or aren’t aware of.
• Keep reinforcing your stance when’er you get a chance.

I have talked about this earlier as well (Of party season and the lazy startups in India) and even now, I see very few startups actually believing in seasonality/ in the power-of-today!

What’s your opinion?

Tags: google, Innovation, marketing tips