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Blog Home Business Business Essentials The Brand Power of the Ever-Changing Google Doodle

The Brand Power of the Ever-Changing Google Doodle

When it comes to brand name recognition, it doesn’t get much bigger than Google. As a matter of fact, Forbes ranks Google as the second most valuable brand name at $82.5 Billion as of May 2016 (Apple is their top pick). The search giant has even become become part of everyday conversations, with “just Google it,” or the slightly more passive aggressive, “let me Google that for you.”

While the company has embedded itself in nearly every type of tech project worldwide, Google frequently makes headlines with one small change: when their homepage logo is replaced with a Google Doodle. Since the Doodle’s simple beginning, over 2000 Google Doodles have appeared worldwide. Let’s look into its history, and how Google’s brand awareness grows with each iteration.

About the Google Doodle

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Google Doodle: Burning Man via Google

The very first Google Doodle appeared in 1998, when Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin posted in honor of the Burning Man Festival. It was designed to let users know that Page and Brin would be away at the festival, should the servers crash while they were away.

Subsequent logos were designed to celebrate holidays, events, achievements, and people. In 2000, Google officially established an internal team to design the logos dubbed “Doodlers.”

Interactive Google Doodles

By 2010, Doodles became far more complex with the first animated Doodle arriving in January 2010, celebrating Isaac Newton. The Newton Doodle featured an apple falling from a tree. That May, Google unveiled one of their most popular Google Doodles ever — an interactive logo that allowed users to play Pac-Man.

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Google Doodle: Pac-Man 30th Anniversary via Google

Designed to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Pac-Man arcade game, and created in association with BANDAI NAMCO, the Pac-Man Doodle replaced the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button with an “Insert Coin” button. By clicking, users could then play the classic game within the Google homepage. Pressing the button a second time added Ms. Pac-Man as an additional player.

It was estimated that 505 million users played the Pac-Man Doodle game, culminating into 4,819,352 hours of gameplay. When the Google logo returned 24 hours later, there was a huge demand from users to continue playing the game. Google responded with a dedicated page, where to this day you can still ‘Insert Coin’ and play the Pac-Man Doodle.

There have been several more interactive Google Doodles, celebrating musicians like Les Paul with a playable guitar and artists like Jim Henson with interactive puppets. These interactive Doodles, and the traditional Doodles, are all designed to be unpredictable and a surprise to users.

“Rather than presenting the same logo endlessly, these doodles allow Google to present their site as being ‘live,’ letting the user know this is not a faceless, static machine.” – Jay Handelman, Queen’s University

The Google Doodle breaks all traditional brand management guidelines, but for the company it continues to drive massive amounts of users to the homepage. The Doodles also avoid any type of direct ad placement.

“Google does not generate any direct revenue from the doodles. It is there for the user to be entertained and surprised.” – Aaron Brindle, Google Spokesperson

Video Google Doodles

2011 marked the introduction of the first video Google Doodle. Using an embedded YouTube player, the video Google Doodle celebrated the life and work of Charlie Chaplin on his 122nd birthday. The video stars members of the Google Doodle team.

The success of the video, and its promotion of YouTube, led to the creation of more elaborate video Doodles. In September of 2011, Google released a Freddie Mercury Doodle — one which took Doodler Jennifer Hom and team four months to create.

“Working on this doodle for Freddie Mercury’s birthday was an absolute blast. Not only did I have a great team of animators, illustrators, and engineer, I was also working with the fantastic Queen classic, “Don’t Stop Me Now.” The development of this 90 second tribute took about 4 months — most of which went into planning the visual style of the doodle. – Jennifer Hom, Doodler

Other video Google Doodles were made to celebrate moments like the 79th Anniversary of the first Drive-In movie theater.

2013 saw a masterful recreation of the works of Saul Bass, celebrating his 93rd birthday. Doodler Matthew Cruickshank drew everything in Adobe Illustrator before animating in After Effects.

“I’ve always been interested in the work of Saul Bass and was delighted to get the opportunity to celebrate his birthday on the Google homepage. From the outset I wanted to celebrate a number of his film credits in succinct succession, as well as a nod in the direction of his poster work. Film rights can be problematic so I wasn’t completely sure of the order of cutting, but as it turned out every studio was a pleasure to work with. Corresponding with Jennifer Bass was inspirational and led to hearing that Saul Bass was a Dave Brubeck fan. Although I hadn’t synched animation to music we found a Brubeck track that managed to hit the right notes. Again, the Brubeck estate were superb to work with. – Matthew Cruickshank, Doodler

In one of the biggest undertakings in Google Doodle history, the 2014 International Women’s Day video featured over 100 inspiring women from around the world. Doodler Liat Ben-Rafael and editor Morgan Stiff created the piece to help diversify Google Doodles to include more women.

With the incredible reach of the Google homepage and the continuous curiosity and amazement of users, Google Doodles continue to defy brand rules and help further Google as one of the most well-known companies on Earth.

Top image via fatmawati achmad zaenuri

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