Here’s the brutal truth: Chromebooks have suffered from the beginning from pretty poor overall marketing. Unlike tablets or smartphones, Chromebooks simply don’t get the same face time with potential buyers by way of more-standard marketing techniques. TV commercials, YouTube commercials, etc. tend to only feature Chromebooks here and there, and every time we’ve thought that could potentially be ready to expand a bit, the Chromebook market’s disparate nature has always made it a tough sell.
The tough fact is, there have only been a few flagship-level Chromebooks capable of holding the mantle of a real Chromebook marketing push. With the broad democracy of Chromebooks, it has always been pretty tough for Google to clearly advertise for a few headline devices to get the message across. Take the most-marketed electronics – Apple, Samsung and Google’s Pixel devices – and you see the vast difference in what is trying to be communicated. Chromebooks for Everyone is a great slogan until you try and distill it down to a commercial. Then its a bit more ethereal.
Chromebook Plus is great marketing sauce
Enter Chromebook Plus. Google’s latest move in the ChromeOS space could be precisely what they needed to create some truly compelling marketing around these new devices. Though we here at Chrome Unboxed can talk until we’re blue in the face about what Chromebook Plus is, what it means for consumers, and why you should be excited about it, Google needs to lead a bit of this up-front messaging with great commercials both online and on standard television to get the ball rolling. Case in point: people generally need to at least get the gist of what Chromebook Plus is on a much wider level before they’ll really buy in.
And commercials like this one and the sizzle video they made for the event are what I feel is the beginning of a new marketing push for Chromebooks like we’ve never had in the past. Again, over the years, it has been tough to get the message across, but Chromebook Plus as a general idea is far simpler to talk about than the entirety of all Chromebooks that exist.
Think about it: 2x faster, 2x more memory, 2x better screens, 2x more storage. It’s a clear campaign on its own that simply needs to get in front of eyeballs. And commercials like this one at Best Buy and a more forward-facing brand awareness (like what we’re beginnning to see at Best Buy stores) are the types of marketing moves Google can make clearly and consicely with Chromebook Plus.
Now, don’t get me wrong: it’ll take far more than what we’ve seen thus far, but we’re moving in the right direction for certain. As general understanding and curiosity around Chromebook Plus heightens, more consumers will want to dig deeper and find niche blogs like this one to continue their journey. With any luck, the continuing flow of new features for these devices will only continue to give Google more reasons to talk about them in more public, widespread ways. And if things fall in place the way we think they will, this is only the beginning of what the Chromebook Plus era will be capable of.
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