Google 2012 Annual Report Download - page 13

7GOOGLE INC. | Form10-K
PART I
ITEM1.Business
Marketing
Google’s global brand is well known. We believe that building a trusted, highly recognized brand begins with providing high-quality
products and services that make a notable diff erence in people’s lives. Marketing is responsible for generating advertiser revenue
through marketing campaigns to small businesses, as well as providing thought leadership to chief marketing o cers through
industry insight, research, and analysis. Our marketing, promotional, and public relations activities are designed to promote
Google’s brand image and diff erentiate it from competitors.
Competition
Our business is characterized by rapid change and converging, as well as new and disruptive, technologies. We face formidable
competition in every aspect of our business, particularly from companies that seek to connect people with information on the
web and provide them with relevant advertising. We face competition from:
•General purpose search engines, such as Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing.
•Vertical search engines and e-commerce websites, such as Kayak (travel queries), Monster.com (job queries), WebMD (for
health queries), and Amazon.com and eBay (e-commerce). Some users will navigate directly to such websites rather than
go through Google.
•
Social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. Some users are relying more on social networks for product or service
referrals, rather than seeking information through general purpose search engines.
•
Other forms of advertising, such as television, radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards, and yellow pages, for ad dollars.
Our advertisers typically advertise in multiple media, both online and o ine.
•
Mobile applications on iPhone and Android devices, which allow users to access information directly from a publisher
without using search engines.
•
Providers of online products and services. A number of our online products and services, including Gmail, YouTube,
and Google Docs, compete directly with new and established companies, which off er communication, information, and
entertainment services integrated into their products or media properties.
We compete to attract and retain users, for whom other products and services are literally one click away, primarily on the basis
of the relevance and usefulness of our search results and the features, availability, and ease of use of our products and services.
We also compete to attract and retain content providers (Google Network Members, as well as other content providers for whom
we distribute or license content), primarily based on the size and quality of our advertiser base, our ability to help these partners
generate revenues from advertising, and the terms of our agreements with them.
Government Regulation
We are subject to numerous domestic and foreign laws and regulations covering a wide variety of subject matter. New laws and
regulations (or new interpretations of existing laws and regulations) may also impact our business. The costs of compliance with
these laws and regulations are high and are likely to increase in the future and any failure on our part to comply with these laws
may subject us to signifi cant liabilities and other penalties.
Culture and Employees
We take great pride in our culture. We embrace collaboration and creativity, and encourage the iteration of ideas to address
complex technical challenges. Transparency and open dialog are central to us, and we like to ensure that company news reaches
our employees fi rst through internal channels.
Despite our rapid growth, we still cherish our roots as a startup and give employees the freedom to act on their ideas regardless
of role or function within the company. We strive to hire the best employees, with backgrounds and perspectives as diverse as
our global users. We provide an environment where these talented people can have fulfi lling careers working on some of the
biggest challenges in technology, and have a huge, positive impact on the world.
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