Internal Branding: Lessons from Google

Google is always worth a visit, especially when it comes to branding. Hence Brand Academy considers itself privileged that the German HQ of the search engine behemoth has opened its doors for BA Students once again.

This time 22 International Brand Management and International Brand Communication Master’s students set out to understand Google’s internal branding as part of their 2nd semester “Corporate Branding“ module, which is supervised by Prof. Dr. Simone Roth.

Thanks to the friendly guidance of Ms Sabine Georg, Creative Agency Manager with Google Germany GmbH, the students managed to dive deep into the topic and satisfy their curiosity. Some of the questions that were posed and answered were:

·       What are Google’s mission, vision, and values?
·       How does Google create corporate culture nowadays? What is “googley”?
·       What measures are in place to motivate the Google employees?

Among other things, our students learned that Google considers entrepreneurial spirit part of its DNA, hence much is done to develop, maintain and expand it. A less formal structure is only one logical result. While the latter gives many fantastic talents the room they need, those who require more structure and less uncertainty may find it a challenge. In contrast, Google’s playful surroundings posed no challenge at all: Our students enjoyed giving them a test or two – and actually felt how it created room for inspiration.
Brand Academy is curious too see how many ball baths and cuddle toys will pop up on ist premises over the remainder of the semester.