“Default customers” vs. “momentum customers”
The current squabble between Google and Microsoft over default search engine settings on Vista really comes down to one thing: the best way to create the customers who can carry the brand forward.
These can be “default customers,” or they can be “momentum customers.” There is a big difference between the two.
Winning by default
The IE7 browser search bar in Vista defaults to Microsoft search—as anyone would expect it to. (Everyone plays this game: the search bars on Firefox, Safari and Opera default to Google.) But, since Vista will be included on 90% of computers sold in the US (if not the world), Google is rightfully concerned. Microsoft’s default IE browser shipped free with Windows killed off Netscape.
Microsoft’s default search setting could, over time, give Redmond the search traffic to challenge Google’s primacy in online advertising. Microsoft will simply “have the numbers” thanks to market share and good old user inertia.
Smart users (like us) quickly customize search engine settings. The great mass of users will simply use what’s there in that little box.
What’s important for Google, though, is not to fall prey to the default customer thesis, because that runs counter to Google’s forte, which is innovation.
The default game is Microsoft’s game.
Creating “momentum customers”
While Google would like as many default customers as possible for strategic purposes, it can’t expect to win the default war. Microsoft holds those cards. Instead, Google must aim for “momentum customers.” These are customers created through innovation, rather than captured through default. Momentum customers rally to your product or service because they believe in it. They tell others about it. They’re eager to extend its value because it already extends them.
Momentum customers are far more valuable than default customers. They help define markets. Momentum customers made the iPod a market leader because they made the iPod a form of personal expression. That’s something a mere “mp3 player” could never do.
Momentum customers made Google what it is today. Google innovated a superior search experience, with superior results, and created customers who championed the Google platform.
Google’s product is not “search”
It’s important to recognize that Google’s product is not “search.” Google’s product is what the customer can do with search. The customer is Google’s greatest competitive weapon. He or she is far more potent than any algorithm.
Google’s challenge
Given Microsoft’s virtually limitless resources, the challenge for Google is to innovate so that the context of Google search results forms a complete customer platform, a proactive place with many more advantages and freedoms than Microsoft can offer. This would be a digital lifestyle platform as close to the customer as his or her iPod.
There’s no one leading that market, yet.
