Google Cardboard Marketing

Strengths

        From the time of its release in 2014 to January 2016, Google Cardboard has shipped over 5 million units around the world (Handrahan, 2016). This innovative product gives its customers the ability to experience virtual reality in a creative, yet affordable way. Google Cardboard has great potential in the market if it focuses on and capitalizes on its impeccable strengths.

The first strength of Google Cardboard is that it is low cost to produce. “The cardboard is made from recycled paper, lenses are made out of plastic, and the magnet is made up of neodymium material.” (Technavio, 2014) It is a very light product, thereby it is fairly easy and less costly to package and distribute to customers. “These are all easily-accessible materials, which means that the final product isn’t subject to the extreme price fluctuations normally observed in tech” (Technavio, 2014) Considering the low cost of this product, these boxes are more than affordable for everyday consumers compared with other options provided. These low costs in turn become savings that get passed on to the consumer.

Secondly, Google Cardboard relies on their low costs in order to offer their product at a low price point making it more attractive and attainable to consumers. A customer is able to buy this product for the price of only $15, or they can buy 2 for only $25. (Teh, 2016) It allows consumers to avoid a hefty monetary investment if they are curious about the product. They will be less picky and precise when determining whether or not they should purchase the product as it is less of a loss to the customer even if they are not 100% satisfied. In this way Google Cardboard is able to sell more products and gain more recognition.

Thirdly, Google Cardboard is able to capture consumers’ interest and awe with a wide array of innovative apps and experiences available to introduce them to the world of virtual reality simulators. Google Cardboard has a cardboard app where you can discover 7 new experiences, each experience gives customers a new and unique way of experiencing virtual reality.  Some of these experiences include the YouTube app where the consumer is able to watch a variety of Youtube videos. The innovative part of this is that it makes the consumer feel feel like they are watching it in a huge movie theatre, although you're only watching it on a 5 inch device! Another innovative app called “Photo Sphere Viewer lets customers look around in pictures they have taken using Android’s built in 360º panoramic feature”. (Kumparak, 2014)   There is also “Earth Flyover lets you zoom around a city in Google Earth. Push the “button” to start flying forward, push it again to stop.” (Kumparak, 2014) Another inventive app that is bound to catch a customer’s attention.

Fourth of all, Google Cardboard as a product is new so its customer following and loyalty is limited but Google as a brand has an enormous customer loyalty that can be passed on to its new product. Google is already known for being very innovative, this is helpful especially since it is a new product a lot of people don’t know about it so its first customers that are going to be the ones to buy it will be those who are already familiar with Google products and trust the brand to deliver valuable and reliable products consistently. In 2011, Google was ranked number 16 out of 528 big brands by a research firm called Brand Keys on their Customer Loyalty Engagement Index (Bhasin, 2011). This gives Google a competitive advantage by already having that large customer base versus smaller companies who introduce a similar product but don't already have loyal customers.