There’s no time for conventional wisdom. Call it GoogleTube.
When one company acquires another, the conventional business strategy is to hold off making any changes until you gain an understanding of the new company, its operations, its culture, everything. The conventional wisdom accompanying this sound business strategy is that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In most cases I would support both of these conventional pieces of advice. In the case of Google’s acquisition of YouTube, however, I’d recommend something completely unconventional. Jump right to your brand strategy. Replace the name YouTube with GoogleTube, do it fast, and drop Google Video altogether. Google currently has a huge advantage over its competitors based on both its scale and its status as a verb. It’s become almost utility-like in its ubiquity and functionality. Google’s dominance as a computer experience is huge and it’s becoming increasingly apparent that whoever has the most bandwidth wins. It’s also apparent that life in the Internet world moves at warp speed. I respect Google’s desire to respect the happy guys at YouTube but, from a branding point of view, it should quickly and seamlessly integrate YouTube into the Google user experience thereby expanding its bandwidth exponentially. Anyone looking to play catch-up would have to be able to run pretty darn fast (if they had the money to get into the race for eyeballs in the first place). While conventional wisdom has its time and place, the time isn’t now and the place isn’t on the Internet. Call it unconventional if you will, but call it GoogleTube. Google’s business strategy and its brand strategy have always been ahead of the curve. My advice is to concentrate on the brand. I have no doubt the business will follow.